


Alternate

by perniciousLizard



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Reality, M/M, Mirror Universe, Pseudoscience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-05 01:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4160298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perniciousLizard/pseuds/perniciousLizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt accidentally ends up in a place that’s almost exactly like his own reality, with one major difference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is already complete and posted up on my writing blog ( earninganincomplete.tumblr.com ). This version will be a little different. I am slowly editing the story and posting it up here, and there will also be a couple added scenes and some general shifting around before it's completely up.
> 
> Content Note: In this part, Newt wakes up in bed confused and alarmed about how he got there. No one harmed him, but he is distressed.
> 
> Rating Note: I will edit this with the proper rating after it's all posted. It is somewhere between teen and mature.

Newt tugged his tie just a little bit looser, watching his hands in the mirror. It had been months since the last time he wore one, and his image in the mirror made him wince. He pulled the tie off completely.

"You know what? I don't have time for this," he said, to his reflection. He had a plane to catch.

 --

_The breach wasn't just shut--it was destroyed, broken apart. Its energy was scattered and transformed by the explosion. The nature of the breach was only understood at the most basic level, so there was no effort to guess what the consequences for destroying it would be._

_What if a new breach opened? They could prepare for that. They understood what the consequences of a new breach would be._

Hermann was kept on, given staff again, and a world-wide system was built to detect the opening of a new rift. They rushed to make it, hurrying while fear and paranoia granted them the funding and cooperation necessary for such a large project.

The very first long range sensor detected a breach opening within ten minutes of turning on.

They initially assumed it had to be a bug in the system. The energy detected was minimal, and the location, far too close. A team was sent to investigate, anyway. Armageddon had been too narrowly avoided to just assume it was an error.

The team shared a pack of cigarettes and cracked dark jokes as they drove out to the site.

The area was well lit for ten at night. They clutched their useless guns tightly in their gloved hands. On the beach, glowing golden over sparkling sands, there was a breach. A rift in the universe. It looked like a gash in the sky. It was twenty feet off the ground and about the size of a person. It was _bright._

The team took pictures, and stood guard. Maybe they could take down whatever came out of something that small. Hermann, back at the base monitoring the situation on his computer and communicating through radio, asked for every bit of data they could gather. Three hours later, someone noticed that the breach was changing shape. Its ends seemed thinner than before, and more measurements were taken. Another hour, and it disappeared from view completely. An hour after that, the energy readings for the area dropped to normal. It was gone.

Two days later, the station alarms went off again. Another tiny breach had appeared a few miles offshore. They sent a helicopter.

Other stations finished construction, and they found the same thing. All over the world, rifts were popping up, staying for a few hours, and then disappearing. Nothing came out, and their instruments could not go through. One materialized in the middle of a city, in traffic. A hiker noticed the normal sounds of the woods had gone still, and found one miles away from any other human life.

Hermann continued to be employed. People were afraid. Newt returned to work. He cut short a lecture tour, forgot about a book deal, broke up his band again, and dumped his pet skin mite (Julie Ruin) with his uncle before hopping aboard the military plane that would take him to his new life.

Everyone was waiting for one of the earth's glowy new blemishes to open up, and for _something_ to come out. He was the world's leading expert on weird shit, so he got a VIP invite just in case that expertise was needed.

Without that invite, he would have tried to sneak past the bouncer. He would have built himself a scanner, found himself a mini-breach, and tried to look in it himself.

\--

"Oh. _You're_ here."

Newt grinned. It had been way too long, but he and Hermann were both busy guys, constantly in demand.

This new lab was brightly lit and filled with people and equipment. It was neat and organized, a testament to the current head scientist. Newt had walked into hell.

Hermann stood by a chalkboard, _of fucking course,_ gripping his cane with both hands. He fixed Newt with a hard gaze. "Dr. Geiszler," he said, after his first greeting got no response.

It took Newt another few seconds to gather himself, and then he strode over across the lab on a straight path towards Hermann. There were people trying to work in the way that he had to push past. His boots still had mud on them from outside and he hadn't shaved in two weeks.

Hermann accepted a hug, resigned. Newt pulled back, hands on Hermann's shoulders, still grinning. "Hermann! You absolute prick! I sent you front row tickets, and you don't even send an apology?"

"Like I needed to," he scoffed. "I can't imagine a version of reality where I would have attended."

"If you're going to be fake British you need to fake the manners, too, idiot."

"I considered returning the tickets, but then I recalled that I had immediately thrown them in the garbage."

"Terrible manners. I'm  _disgusted._ I thought better of you. No I didn't. Let's get out of here. I have something actually important to ask you and I don't need your legion of mathletes here listening in."

"Have some respect," he hissed, shoving Newt away from him. "These are some of the most decorated mathematicians and physicists in the world."

Newt glanced at them, skeptical . "Sorry, sorry." He hoped he didn't have to work with them. He had probably just made them all hate him. Whoops.

Hermann's irritation faded, and he sighed. "I suppose I can take a minute."

They left the room together, easily falling back into their old rhythm.

"So, dude, were you the one who told them to hire me?" Newt asked. "Not like I don't appreciate getting paid for what like we both know I was going to do anyway. There are no kaiju yet, unless some of the urban legends I've had emailed to me from every one of my plus sixty relatives turn out to be true. Are they keeping tiny kaiju hidden from the mass media to avoid a panic from the unwashed masses or something?"

Hermann shook his head. "No. But there has been an assumption from the beginning that it was only a matter of time before we will start to see them again. I didn't send for you, Newton. Your work would just be a distraction from the important work that was already happening." He kept glancing at Newt as they walked. He didn't seem to know what to do with him. "I did mention that you had quite a few related projects that you had to shut down because they were they were wasting resources at the very end of the war. It was decided that you should restart those projects. At least the ones that weren't completely frivolous."

They walked into a break room with four small tables and a television turned to the news. Cozy, compared to the Shatterdome cafeteria. It was probably a claustrophobic nightmare when most people took their breaks, since the building had been packed past its original expected capacity, but it was bearable at the moment.

"Any timetable on when something actually might come out?" Newt asked. "Or when a real breach is going to open up?"

Hermann shook his head. "I can't do anything but speculate. I'm not sure anything actually will come through. The rate of the breach appearances has been steady since we first started detecting them." He glanced at Newt. "You might have to do with no new samples. You fanboy; you  _want_ them to come through, don't you?"

Newt shrugged. He had no interest in verbally disentangling his feelings on that subject with Hermann when he knew that he got it and was just poking at him. Newt was totally going to be the grown-up, here. "You can't think they're benign."

"I think they might be  _accidental,_ " Hermann said. "If they are benign or malignant, it is in the same way as a tumor. But I understand why we need to prepare ourselves for the worst case scenario--that this is deliberate."

"They thought the first kaiju was just some weird deep water specimen that flipped out and left its territory. Then they thought the breach was a natural, spontaneous phenomenon. Our track record on things turning out to be accidents is pretty much shit, Hermann. Like I can't believe you actually buy that."

They both got coffee and argued the point for the next half an hour, until Hermann had to return to work. Fighting had solved nothing--the data was still too limited to trust any theory they came up with--other than getting rid of the last of their discomfort with each other, from two years necessary separation.

\--

"I'm authorized, man!" Newt shouted, waving his badge and running towards the van idling outside the facility. He couldn't move very fast, his backpack filled with heavy equipment.

One of the uniformed grunts leaned out the window to yell back. "Sorry, doc! All filled up!"

"Take the day off!" Like any of them had work that was more important than Newt's.

He'd rushed out as soon as he heard there was a breach within travel distance of the facility, but he was still ages slower than these brainless military thugs.

"Sorry! No can do! Orders!" She rolled up the window and they drove off.

He threw his arms up, finishing with an obscene gesture once they were out of sight. He shrugged the backpack off, carefully setting the delicate equipment on the pavement. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a rolled up sleeve, glancing around. Was he going to let those thickheaded authoritarians stop him from his work?

He broke into a grin when he spotted the other vans parked and waiting. Now he just needed the coordinates and authorization, so he could get the keys.

\--

"It's actually offshore," Hermann said, not looking away from his holographic display. "You would have to get authorization for a boat, as well, and know how to pilot one."

"Of course I know how to helm all sorts of ships, Hermann," Newt said, scoffing. "Have a little faith in me, dude. It's like we didn't even share brains. Kaiju came out of the ocean, I wanted to see a kaiju, ergo, I've done the boat thing before."

"Just leave this one alone," Hermann said. One of his assistants came over, handing him a stack of papers, and he nodded as he took them. "Distribution is random, or appears so at this point, but we have had a breach opening within traveling range approximately once a month. Be prepared, next time."

"No, see, that's not what's going to happen. Just give me the coordinates, and I'll worry about the rest of it."

Hermann turned and pushed his reading glasses down his nose so he could look at Newt over them. "It's not like the coordinates are a secret. I  _suppose_ ." He stood up. Newt was surprised he was getting up instead of sending an underling or just straight reeling the numbers off from memory like the freakish nerd he totally was. "Honestly, I have no idea what good you think will come of this."

"I have some modified tech I want to point at it," Newt said. "In a controlled way."

"I'm sure the military officers would have taken your readings for you," Hermann said. "So long as they didn't actually have to deal with  _you."_

"Nice. Plus, I want to see one! There's no way the photos and videos have done them justice. Have you gone out yet?" he asked.

"No," Hermann said. There were dark circles under his eyes, Newt noticed. He and Herc Hansen had probably gotten the shortest post-world-saving vacations out of everyone. Mako and Raleigh were still off getting their pictures taken for magazine covers. "It would have been a waste of time."

"But cool, right?" He was inspired. He could tell that Hermann actually wanted to see the damn things, but wasn't willing to let himself look like he cared about something he'd already called a waste of time. "Come on. You can come with me."

He frowned. "Why on earth would I do that? I'm not looking to drown, today, Newton."

"Like I'm not  _awesome_ at steering a ship." He frowned back, deliberately mirroring his expression. "Now you're coming along so you can stop baselessly insulting me."

"I'm not--" he broke off and sighed. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "You're wasting what time you have. The breach will close in ten hours, fifteen minutes. It will take five hours of continuous travel to see it." He walked over to the huge machine in the center of the room, the machine that constantly spit out local breach readings. "Watch me do this, so you don't have to bother us again when you  _inevitably_ miss this one and want the next event coordinates."

Newt had a pretty good idea how to get it to show him whatever information he needed, but last time he had touched the enormous central computer Hermann had walked over and calmly dumped a wastepaper basket over his head. And  _then_ he had explained that Newt wasn't allowed to touch it without permission.

Being annoying was going to be what got him permission, again. Really, if they expected him to act differently, they had to reward him when he was on his best behavior, not his worst. Positive reinforcement, right?

He watched Hermann bring up the coordinates. He pulled out his phone and noted them down. "All right. You should still come with me." He put his hand on Hermann's bony shoulder. "You need a day off."

"It would hardly be time off," he said. His gaze flicked over to Newt's hand, but he didn't comment on it. He stayed silent while he poked at the touch display, adjusting something Newt only vaguely understood. "All right, fine."

"What?" Newt grinned. "I can't believe it. All right!" He slapped Hermann lightly on the back, and Hermann looked disgruntled. "Now we just need the keys." And maybe some food, if it was really five hours minimum.

Hermann sighed. "I will meet you outside in fifteen minutes." He met Newt's eyes and held eye contact. "And, Newton.  _I will be driving_ ."

\--

This research expedition had morphed into  _KSCI ROAD TRIP_ in Newt's head, so he grabbed some snacks from the break room and loaded up some quality music onto his mp3 player before jogging out to the van. He broke into a run for the last minute when he realized he was going to be late and he knew that Hermann would just leave without him out of bitter spite.

Hermann was unlocking the driver's side door. He didn't look up. "You're two minutes late, Newton. You are going to turn this into a frivolous waste of time for both of us."

"Shut up, I'm exactly on time." He held up his watch to show Hermann.

"Your watch is slow."

"Who cares? Let's rock and roll, dude. I still can't believe you agreed to this."

Hermann carefully sat down and drew his legs in. "...I admit," he started, wincing a little, "I  _have_ wanted to see one."

"Knew it." He put his backpack of equipment in the backseat, carefully wedged on the floor. He could keep a better eye on it down there than in the trunk. "You don't have to do all this shit yourself anymore, you know that, right? You have people to boss around."

"That's true now," he said, starting the van up after he finished adjusting his seat and the mirrors. "When they first came on, they couldn't spend ten minutes on the sensor without breaking the bloody thing, and then I'd be up in the middle of the night with one of the few competent technicians, recalibrating it. If I find anything broken this time, they had better be able to fix it themselves before I get back, or they will be looking for new employment." He sounded a little satisfied.

Hermann told him about how touchy the sensor had been, as the first of its kind, and how it had only ever been meant to be run either by the few people who had built it or people who had been extensively trained by them.

"Sounds like a user-unfriendly pain in the ass," Newt said.

"It is basically three different machines slapped together as inelegantly and quickly as possible," Hermann said. "But it works."

Hermann drove slowly at first, and on the wrong side of the road. It wasn't a high traffic area; there was one road on the island and it went to the docks. Pretty soon Hermann was gripping the steering wheel and shooting along the road at speeds that made Newt carefully keep his eyes off the speedometer.

He had known Hermann drove like this, despite never sitting in a car he was driving before. The weird rush and wave of nausea that materialized when Hermann said he was going to drive made sense all of a sudden. Was this a drift thing?

"It's like an hour drive, so if you need me to take over, it's not a big deal," he said, his voice a little higher than normal.

"You're piloting the boat," Hermann pointed out. "It's only fair that I take this part." He careened around a steep curve.

"Right," Newt said. He swallowed, heavily, and looked down, away from the window.

They survived the drive, despite the slap fight over the radio when Newt tried to plug his mp3 player into the port. Hermann had managed to continue navigating the road at a million miles per hour ( _kilometers, Newton, you are too American and you're supposed to be a scientist)_ while they physically struggled over the sound system.

Newt sort of recognized the class of ship they were taking out. He didn't let on that he wasn't 100% confident in his ability to safely steer it, even after they were on track and no one was dead yet. They just kept not killing each other by crashing vehicles into things. Today was going amazingly well.

While Newt made sure they were on course, Hermann set up some of their equipment on-deck. He eventually joined Newt, carrying the thermos of coffee and a couple cups into where Newt was keeping an eye on the ship monitors.

The sky was bright blue and the air smelled salty and clean, with no tinge of ammonia.

"It's not complicated," Newt said, glancing at Hermann. He assumed he was being checked up on. "The ship itself looks completely different than anything I've taken out before, but the navigation system is almost identical." He shrugged.

"To both our shock, you actually know what you're doing," Hermann said. He poured out some coffee and gave a cup to Newt, like a reward.

"I always know exactly what I'm doing," Newt said.

Hermann went back outside, after a few minutes. He leaned against the rail and stayed there, more interested in the water than anything Newt had to say. Newt shouted out to him, anyway, and Hermann shouted back.

Newt felt at ease, like this, like he hadn't in months.

\--

The trip ended up being a waste of time, scientifically speaking. The two of them didn't find out anything that the people actually assigned to go and check out the breach wouldn't have found for them.

The breach was beautiful, actually, and amazing. It was probably going to kill all of them someday, but that just added something to the experience for Newt. They watched it, almost silent, until it shrunk and disappeared, and then Hermann went and watched the last of it disappear with his laptop. They ate the food Newt brought with them, and headed back to shore.

Hermann almost broke his music player on the trip back, yanking the plug so hard out of the port that the delicate and innocent device flew across the car and got lost under Newt's seat. He almost stepped on it, twice, before he fished it out. He pretended it broke and tried to guilt Hermann into buying him a new one, which didn't work. After he gave that up he plugged it back in and made Hermann listen to some of the tracks from his old band's album.

Hermann took his time getting out of the car, and his pace was slower than usual on the way back into the building. Newt walked with him, back to his room, exhausted but his brain whirring and not ready to be done.

He picked at Hermann's current breach theory, and got verbally slapped down with increasingly exhausted fondness until Hermann crossed some sort of pain/tiredness threshold and switched to cruelty the last few feet before his door.

Newt responded with sarcastic compliments, successfully irritating Hermann to such a degree that they spent ten minutes loudly whispering outside his bedroom, neither of them entirely sure what the main topic of their argument even was.

Newt finally said, "You're a stubborn fool and you'll realize I'm right after you've slept on it."

"I will  _not_ ."

"Even when you don't admit it, I'll know you know I'm right," he said. "I'm leaving. You look horrible. Go to bed, old man." He frowned at him, intent, and then gave him a hug.

Hermann patted him on the back, awkward, no real idea what he was supposed to do with his hand. "Good night, Newton," he said. "And get some sleep yourself. For a change."

Newt stepped back. "Sure, dude." He saluted, sarcastic, and walked off.

\--

It was two months before the next breach opened up in range, and Newt was  _so_ ready for it. The insomnia fairy had slammed him over the head with her magical bludgeoning stick, so he had a lot of extra time at night to work, when almost no one else was around to bug him.

The equipment he needed for his own work was coming in, along with whatever samples he could badger people into sending his way. He had an idea he had always intended to pursue (about the mechanism that caused the kaiju to break down so rapidly post-death) and he was eager to get started.

He checked on his preserved samples until three in the morning. He thought about trying to sleep some more. He body ached with exhaustion, but he was pretty sure the second he got into bed he would be wide awake again.

He went to Hermann's main lab, to check the sensor display. There was one other person in the lab--the technician who was stuck with night guard duty. He glanced up when Newt walked in, but they were used to seeing each other. He looked back down at his tablet.

"Anything nearby?" Newt asked.

He looked up again, this time at the display. "There's three in range of the sensor, but none you could get to in time. Sorry, Newt."

"Have you read the news? They shoot electricity now, and turn your brain into a kaiju, and then you eat your family," Newt said.

"I thought they were sentient and trying to communicate with us."

"That's  _so_ last week. Everyone online is  _all about_ the kaiju brain transplant theory," Newt said. He didn't like to actually dignify that bs with the word "theory."

"That sucks, though," the tech said. "I thought we could make friends."

"Not just friends, man.  _Taken by the Breach_ is the newest retro-ebook-erotica bestseller. I bet you've read it six times. I bet you're reading it  _right now._ "

"Can't finish it because I'm just so turned on. So I've never really read it." He looked at Newt again. "Go to bed, Dr. Geiszler."

"You don't have the authority to make me do that," Newt said. "And if you did, fuck authority, right? Are you stuck on this shift forever?"

"I requested--"

The sensor display went "bing" and they both turned to look. Newt walked closer, trying to see if he misread it.

"Oh, hey," the tech said. "This is the closest one, yet. It's actually on land." He rotated his chair around and picked up the phone.

Newt quickly copied down the coordinates and went to grab his stuff. He'd wrangled permission to take a van out whenever he needed one, so he didn't have to wake anyone up to whine at them to let him go.

If he woke up anyone, it was entirely because he wanted to.

He banged at Hermann's door, dressed, packed, and vibrating with barely contained energy.

He fixed Hermann with a wide grin when the door finally opened. Hermann's hair was a mess and he was frowning so deeply he was probably straining his face. He was wearing an oversized bathrobe over his pajamas, which was  _adorable._

"If this isn't an  _emergency,_ Newton, you will no longer have to worry about your insomnia. Because I will be  _permanently_ putting you to sleep."

"It's not an emergency, but it's urgent, so get some shoes on and let's go," Newt said.

Hermann looked him over. His expression dulled. "I'm assuming a new breach opened. Nearby."

"So close by! Like, half an hour and we're there, and that's counting the time I'm wasting standing here talking to you."

"There's no need for me to be there. I know you have your..." he made a face, and said the next word like it tasted rotten, "... _experiments._ "

"Hey, it was your theory in the first place, excuse me for rigging up something to check it out." It was one of a hundred different theories Hermann had thrown out, just to prove to Newt that they had no real basis for speculation, because any of them could be true. Newt had latched onto the provable ones and decided to use process of elimination. The best part about it was that he was going to prove Hermann wrong over and over again. "You  _know_ you want to see me test it out."

"I don't actually want to watch you poke a rift in our universe with a metal stick," Hermann said. "But you've successfully woken me. I'll get dressed." He slammed the door in Newt's face.

\--

Hermann was a completely unnecessary addition, but he did look forward to proving one of his theories wrong, right to his face. Plus their trip two months ago was probably the best day he'd had in a couple years, other than  _maybe_ the day he adopted Julie Ruin. He wasn't going to dwell on that.

They met outside again. Hermann looked as presentable as he ever did, but Newt missed the bathrobe.

Newt went to unlock the driver's side door and Hermann snatched the keys out of his hand.

"Look, I'm perfectly competent at--"

Hermann snorted.

"--shut up, Hermann. You know what? I don't want to drive. You clearly get off on it, so I'm going to be the better man here and let you go ahead and have a good time, because I'm just genuinely a better person than you." He held his hands up.

"Oh, right," Hermann said, his tone acid. "Yes, that's absolutely true."

Hermann drove. Newt sat in the backseat and turned on the "metal stick" he was going to poke the breach with. It needed to warm up, and they were going to get there in two seconds with Hermann driving.

What with Newt's enthusiastic boy scout level preparedness, and Hermann's driving, they were the first people to reach the rift. It was huge compared to the last one Newt had seen, but still tiny and almost cute compared to the one the kaiju had come through. It hovered two feet off the ground, at a slight angle. Newt wouldn't even need to stand on anything to poke it.

"Do be careful," Hermann said, sighing. Newton would be far from the first person to try to something like this. Nothing affected them. There had been a few reports of strange light effects when an individual approached the breach, but it never happened with reliable witnesses. Hermann did not actually believe it happened, just like he didn't believe that small, invisible kaiju were emerging and were just waiting for the command to attack. These rifts were alarming and there was no clear explanation for them. People made their own theories. Most of them were asinine.

"Always am, dude!" he said. He was egging Hermann on.

Hermann laughed. "You are a reckless fool, Newton."

Newt walked over to the breach, lugging his heavy equipment in both hands. He glanced back at Hermann, who was leaning against the van. He raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for Newt to do something.

Newt dropped the vacuum-cleaner lookalike on the ground and checked its indicators to make sure everything was online and working properly. He was a foot away from the breach. Could he feel it? Was the air a little warmer here, and was his skin prickling?

He patted his pocket, and then pulled his recorder out just enough to turn it on. He started up his usual pre-experiment patter, noting the date and location, and gave a brief summary of the experiment. He continued setting up, while he talked.

"As an aside, Hermann is being completely unhelpful over by the car."

"I'm taking my own readings, you attention-starved adolescent," Hermann called over. He was holding an ugly looking box with a holo display flickering over it. Newt could see Hermann's face ringed with blue.

"Lucky for me, I don't need your help! Just stay back there and admire the view!"

"Is there something admirable to look at?" Hermann wondered. "I see a man with a modified vacuum cleaner and tasteless tattoos. I suppose the breach itself has some aesthetic appeal."

"Shut up, you love my tattoos! On the record," he said, talking to his recorder again, "Hermann Gottlieb loves the tats and wishes he could emulate my fantastic sense of style. He wishes he could get the breach tattooed to his ass, but there are tragically no artists on this shithole of an island."

"Are you finished?" Hermann asked, humorless.

"Oh, sorry, that was rude. DOCTOR Hermann Gottlieb, I mean." He spoke to Hermann in most of his recordings, even when he wasn't around to hear it. "All right." He noticed that the breach was sparking. "Hey, is that normal?" He could hear it, from this distance. It was like static inside his head. He dropped the metal rod and started to back up.

"Is what normal?" Hermann switched off his holopad. "No! Get back!"

Tendrils of light reached out from the breach. Newt was backing up. He fell down, but kept backing up, unable to take his eyes off the light. He wasn't fast enough. One of the tendrils touched him, then he was suddenly surrounded in light. His skin was crawling, every inch of it. He cried out, maybe, or he tried to. He heard Hermann yell.

Everything whited out, and he stopped feeling or hearing anything.

\--

Newt woke up someplace completely different.

He didn't open his eyes, immediately. They ached. He was laying down and there was a pillow under his head. Relief flooded through him.

The breach shocked him and he passed out, and then he must have been hauled back to base. He tried to imagine Hermann dragging him to the van, but more likely Hermann had tossed a jacket over him and called in for help.

Newt opened his aching eyes and blinked until his vision cleared. He was on his side, staring at a desk he didn't own. This wasn't his bedroom, but this wasn't medical, either.

Someone shifted on the bed next to him.

"What was that bloody light about?" Hermann asked.

Newt opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. He swallowed and tried again, with no success. He made himself turn his head and look.

Hermann was sitting up in bed next to him. He wasn't looking at Newton--at some space in the distance where the "bloody light" had been. He was wearing pajamas, but no bathrobe. His hair was in disarray.

"Why am I here?" Newt tried. He sat up, slowly. The blanket slid down, and he realized he wasn't wearing a shirt. His hands were under the blanket, still, and he nervously checked for pants. There were pants.

Hermann rubbed his eyes. "Get back to me once you've woken up, Newton," he muttered.

"You saw a bright light? The breach?" Had Hermann been pulled in, too? If that was the case, then why wasn't he freaking out about this?

"I  _suppose_ that is  _technically_ possible, but there are hundreds of more likely causes," Hermann said.

Newt wanted to ask. He didn't want to ask. Hey, Hermann, why am I in your bed, and why are you okay with this? Since you had to go to my room to get the pajama pants I am wearing, why didn't you just dump me in there? Or take me to see the doctor? That was the weirdest part--there was no way Hermann wouldn't insist on taking him to the doctor after what happened. If not for Newt's health, then to find out if there were any side effects to getting zapped by a breach.

"Um, what happened?" he asked, hoping that question condensed everything he actually wanted to ask.

Hermann looked exasperated. "Darling,  _I_ don't know. Just go back to sleep."

Newt's brain short circuited.

Hermann frowned in concern, put his hand on Newt's bare shoulder, and pushed him back down onto the bed. Newt flopped bonelessly down, that  _word_ Hermann had called him repeating over and over as he struggled to understand what was going on.

Five minutes ago, he had been standing in front of a breach. Now, he was in bed and Hermann was touching him voluntarily. He looked over at the clock next to the table. Actually, it was more like seven minutes. He spotted his phone on the side table and reached for it, to check the date, but stopped when he saw his left hand.

He was wearing a ring. He had never seen this ring before in his life.

He froze. This was a dream or a hallucination. It felt real, but that was a meaningless observation. It was possible it was a memory issue and post his breach electrocution a number of things had happened that had just gotten wiped clean from his memory. That was a distressing thought, worse than the hallucination idea.

"Since when have we been married?" he asked. His voice sounded strange to him. He sounded a little bit like he was freaking out.

Hermann looked even more concerned. Newt noticed that he was also wearing a ring, adding evidence to confirm his "apparently I'm married and it's to my stodgy lab partner" hypothesis.

Another possibility was that this was all an elaborate joke, but that was actually almost worse than the memory loss idea, because that meant Hermann was involved in a joke. It was going about as well as Newt assumed Hermann's joke would go, though.

"You're disoriented," Hermann said.  _No shit._ "Did you have a strange dream?"

Newt considered his answer. "I think I got pulled through a breach into an alternate universe where we're married," he said. "Isn't there a theory in quantum physics where every possible thing that could happen sort of splits off into a new reality?"

Hermann leaned back, baffled. "That's not entirely--well, yes, there is a theory  _similar_ to that." He was speaking with a strange gentleness Newt had never heard before. "It is bollocks, for a number of reasons."

"We already know that there are other universes," Newt said.

"Yes. I am not denying the existence of the anteverse, or of the other...universes that it has harvested. You're proposing that--" he broke off, and looked Newt over, frowning. "I wonder if the doctor is awake at this hour."

That might not be a bad idea, but still. "I'm not sick, Hermann. Something weird just happened. That light--you noticed a light. You said that." If there  _was_ a rift inside the facility, it would have shown up on the sensor. He didn't think his alternate universe theory was the most likely of the ones he had come up with, but he liked it better than the other ones so he was going to run with it.

Hermann was still staring at him. At his chest, specifically. "That's...odd." He reached over and switched on a lamp. Newt covered his face just in time to keep from being blinded again.

Hermann jabbed in on the left side of his chest. "This is different. Since when..."

Newt opened his eyes again and looked down at himself. "Nothing's different, dude."

"I. But..." Hermann was staring at that point on his chest, slowly drawing his hand away. "That's  _impossible._ I  _remember_ it. Right before we went to sleep." He sounded distant.

"I'm not even sure exactly what part you're pointing at," Newt said.

Hermann looked at him, sharply. He reached over and shoved Newt off the bed.

"Who in god's name  _are_ you and what the hell are you doing in my bed?" Hermann hissed.

Newt felt the blankets fall on top of him, and he groaned. Dammit, Hermann.


	2. Chapter 2

While Hermann was freaking out alone in the bathroom, Newt got up off the floor and took a look around what was apparently his bedroom. It was bigger than his real one. Did this facility have marriage suites, or was the private bathroom and larger space an accommodation specifically for Hermann? It was still tiny for two people, but there was enough room for a dresser and a closet. Storage space? Wow. He was already jealous of Bizarro World Newt.

An electric tea kettle was set on top of the dresser, along with some framed photographs, and an exact duplicate of the Godzilla action figure that Newt kept in his own bedroom. Back in his own space, he had a few kaiju figures scattered around it, posed like they were doing battle with the much larger Godzilla figure. He wondered where the others were, and the conversation that had led to just the one being set out. Then he wondered about the conversation that had led to him wearing a _wedding ring_ and had to push down the hysteria that started bubbling up.

"For god's sake, put a shirt on," Hermann snapped, from the bathroom door. Instead of freaking out, like Newt had quite logically assumed, he had apparently taken the time to get completely dressed for the day. "One of the monsters on your back has a different expression," he muttered.

Newt craned his neck, trying to see.

"It would look the same to you! _Idiot_."

"Oh, excuse me for not being entirely sure what the parameters are for this, Hermann," Newt snapped. Hermann was acting more like he was used to, and it grounded him. He went over to the dresser and started to open the top drawer.

"That one's not his," Hermann said, annoyed at Newt for not psychically guessing which drawer contained clothes that would fit him. "The closet is mostly his. Stop rifling around."

Newt rolled his eyes and opened the closet. "This is so weird," he said, conversationally. "I recognize like half of these. What happened in this universe that I bought the other ones? I want to connect it to the one really obvious difference I know about, but that's just lazy thinking."

"It would be one difference that separated us," Hermann said, "If that _ludicrous_ theory turns out to be correct. But it would be something infinitesimally small. The difference that you noted is just a consequence of that small change. Of course, now I am acting like I have _any_ idea what is going on, which I don't."

"I'm just running with that theory because it's palatable compared to the more likely ones," Newt admitted.

"We will check to see if there was, in fact, a breach opening inside the facility, and then I will take you to see a doctor." He said this like it was decided, and there was no point arguing.

Newt went into the bathroom to change. Hermann was treating him like the weird twin of the guy he married, so like even though Newt didn't have anything that was going to surprise him, it was still polite to not just strip down in front of him. He didn't care what people said about him to his face and behind his back; Newt was _loaded_ with decorum.

Hermann tried not to look at him when he emerged from the bathroom, and he kept it up while they walked down the hall. "What is the last thing you remember before you--before you ended up in my bed," he finished off quieter, like he didn't want to be overheard. Newt assumed them being married was common knowledge, so he didn't get what that was about. Like, Hermann hadn't thrown off his wedding ring before he left the bedroom or anything.

"I was out, about to run an experiment on one of the rifts when it reached out and grabbed me," Newt said. "Then, it was like, I was where you found me? I'm even more confused about this than you are, dude."

"You were experimenting on the breach," Hermann repeated, deadpan.

"I was _about to._ I hadn't even switched it on yet, so get that accusation out of your voice. And I know for a fact that people have gotten closer than I did without having this happen to them. We've all seen the picture of that guy who tried to stick his--"

"Yes, we've all seen it, unfortunately," Hermann said.

"So whatever else has changed, that still happened. Amazing!"

"Human nature remains consistently terrible, yes. What a comfort. Various people have tried to...make physical contact with the anomalies. None of them reported anything like what you just described."

"No, but some people _have_ actually described what I said, haven't they?" Newt said. "There was just no video evidence so we assumed they were full of crap."

"With everyone making up stories, how can we possibly know who is lying and who isn't, without evidence?"

They were almost at the main lab. It seemed to be in about the same place in the facility as Newt remembered. He kept looking around as they walked, trying to play "spot the difference."

"Oh, man! You guys have a movie night? That's a great idea! Why don't we have that?"

Hermann glanced at him, for the first time the entire walk. "Maybe they do, but don't advertise out of fear that you will find out and ruin the evening with your _abysmal_ taste in films."

"I have the best taste in movies, Hermann, seriously."

"Then you really are a different man." He pulled open the lab door.

It was a little uncomfortable realizing that Hermann's insults were making him more comfortable. "I can take a lot, but if you keep insulting my taste in movies, I'm getting a divorce."

Hermann winced.

"...what? Too soon to joke about it? Yeah, I guess it is. Sorry, man." He had no idea what the Hermann who was someone who would actually be _with_ him was feeling or thinking, at the moment. He was probably worried about Bizarro Newt.

What _had_ happened to that guy?

Hermann ignored his apology and hurried over to the central display.

"He's probably making my version of Hermann uncomfortable right now. Like, 'no, seriously, dude, we're totally married' and you're like dragging me to get my head checked out."

The night tech was on the other side of the room, looking a little confused to see them. He gave Newt a little wave. It was the exact same guy, with a different haircut.

"There actually was a brief energy spike within the facility at the correct time," Hermann said. "Whatever is actually true, I doubt that is a coincidence."

"Was there another one earlier? Maybe a ten minute drive away?"

"No," Hermann said. "All the others are some distance away."

"I called about the one you're talking about," the tech broke in. "Did you see it?"

"A bright light woke us up," Hermann said. "Newton insisted it was a breach, but I admit I did not believe him."

"He should know better, by now," Newt said. "Like, of course I'm right."

"Yes, you've never in your life woken up incoherent. Was this the shortest breach opening, on record?" he asked the tech.

"I've sent out a query," he said. "I'm pretty sure, though."

Hermann nodded. He and Newt left, after a few minutes.

"While the doctor is examining you," Hermann said, in the hall, "I will see if I can find a picture to confirm my memory of your...body art." He made a face.

"You have a lot of naked pictures of me, Hermann?"

Hermann stared at him for a minute, until it sunk in for Newt that the answer was "yes." His face felt hot.

"Not of _you,"_ Hermann said, to himself. Louder, "It's not what you're thinking. I believe I have pictures of you in a bathing suit from one of our vacations."

"Bizarro-me probably has shots of me right after I got the tattoos," Newt said.

"Bizarro...never mind."

"Like in Superman?"

"Unfortunately, I knew what you were talking about. I was thinking of you more as a doppelganger," he said. "I will check his computer."

"He's totally fine, wherever he is. You know that, right?" Newt asked. Hermann looked uneasy every time he brought up that other guy.

"There is no way for either of us to know that." He was refusing to look at Newt, again. Well, who could blame him? He'd just accidentally screwed up the entire trajectory of Hermann's life.

"Okay, maybe," he said. "But _probably_ he's fine. Hermann--Other Hermann, I mean--he's waiting for Other Newt to get his brain scanned so they can figure out why he keeps insisting they're married. He saw me get groped by the breach tentacles, so--"

"I was with you?" he asked, surprised. "I mean, Other me was there?"

"You've never done that? Gone out with him? To check out the breach, I mean, obviously."

"Never," he said. "He has never gone, himself, though he has expressed some interest."

"Weird! We should record the differences and see if we can track when our timelines diverged. Like, why would that be different?"

"You were busy with your own research," Hermann said. "You stopped talking about it when the last of your equipment came in."

So shipping was more efficient in this universe? What did this mean? "Bring me my--his--laptop so I can note all this down."

"I don't see how it will do any good, but if it will keep you busy," he said.

\--

He was relieved when Hermann finally left him. They had explained to the doctor that he had been "zapped" by the breach, and needed an immediate examination. This gave him a lot of time to sit by himself and think, while the doctor was getting everything ready.

He was convinced, by this point, that he wasn't dreaming or imagining what was going on. The alternate reality idea was so much more interesting and something he could try to prove. If it was a dream, he would wake up, realize it, and then spend the next year in therapy talking about why he had a dream where he was married to Hermann Gottlieb and they had movie nights.

He started noting down the differences he had observed. He wasn't sure what good that would do, either, but he was genuinely interested in figuring out how the separate universe thing worked. He needed more data.

He munched on a post-blood-draw cookie and started looking through the laptop. What was Bizzaro Newt like, _really_ like, as a person? He went straight to the photos and found an uncomfortable number of them completely identical to pictures he had taken.

There were a few hundred more pictures of Hermann, however, going back a few years. Nothing really incriminating, at first, other than the pure volume of them. The location where the pictures were taken started to change--the background of this shot looked like a bar, and the next one looked like a restaurant. In the bar picture, he had his arm around Hermann's shoulders and was grinning into the camera. Hermann looked disgruntled. He was having a lot of trouble figuring out when they had actually started dating, but he was guessing his own interest had started around the time the number of Hermann photos exploded.

He got to the wedding pictures. They probably started dating before that. He and Hermann were both wearing suits, but it seemed kind of casual. They were in a government office, and Bizarro Newt was holding up their license. Newt stared at that one, for a while.

He finally moved on to the next picture. Bizarro Newt and Other Hermann were making lip to lip contact in this one, the marriage license getting a little crumpled in that Newt's fist. Newt snapped the laptop shut and shook his head. He was having trouble swallowing the last bite of his cookie.

Was it strange that he felt like he was invading someone's privacy? He felt like all the sci-fi he had watched over the years should have had him prepared for this situation. "What was even the point, watching all that Star Trek?" he mumbled.

Okay, he needed to stop _dwelling._ The big important thing to do was figure out how to get _back,_ not piece together the mystery of how he had started and maintained a relationship with his professional nemesis. He could laugh about it later, with his own Hermann. Or maybe never mention it ever with him. Yeah, he was going to go with that one.

\--

Getting zapped by a breach earned him a trip to the mainland for a full slate of medical tests. Every single part of his body, inside and out, was scanned, measured, and filed. He got a call from his uncle and ignored it. He wasn't going to lie to family about his situation, but they would just think he had completely lost it.

He got back and discovered that Hermann had already told everyone.

_I am not going to waste time trying to solve this myself._

It made sense, and it wasn’t literally everyone. His family and the world in general still had no idea. It was a douche move acting like Newt wasn't going to be any help figuring this out, though. Everyone treated him like a freak for a few days, and then they went back to treating him like they normally did (a different quality of freak).

The building was already over-stuffed with staff, so there were no extra rooms to put Newt in. He slept in the break room for two nights, and then on a futon someone dragged into a lab for him. After a week of that, Hermann had the futon moved into his bedroom so he would stop knocking on his door at weird hours looking for a razor and a change of underwear. Hermann was disgusted when he found out Newt used Bizarro Newt's toothbrush.

Newt was 99% sure that his own Hermann would have found a different solution to the bedroom problem. This Hermann also was very aware of, and frequently commented on, whether or not Newt had remembered to shave, and how much or how little he had been sleeping.

His weird sleeping habits definitely made sharing a room with Hermann easier, once he had a key. He just slipped in and took a nap during the day, most of the time, or he would sneak in when Hermann was already asleep.

\--

"You look ill," Hermann commented, one morning three weeks after his arrival.

Newt opened his eyes to find Hermann, hair still mussed up from sleep, leaning over him. His gaze was intensely critical.

" _You're_ ill," he mumbled back. He registered, through the fog in his brain, that it wasn't the best comeback he'd ever managed.

Hermann ignored him. "It's no wonder, with your habits recently." He straightened his back and walked away.

Newt fumbled for his glasses and smudged them, trying to get them on his face while his hands refused to listen to what he was telling them to do.

"If it isn't contagious, stay in here and take the bed," Hermann said. He making his way around the room, collecting the things he would need for the day.

"I think it's viral," Newt said. It was possible the stress had lowered his immunity, leaving him vulnerable to whatever was going around. Or maybe he had no immunity to anything in this universe and this was just the tip of the iceberg. He considered that. No, that was unlikely, and kind of useless to think about other than as a way to freak himself out.

Hermann sighed. "I have to change the sheets anyway. Just, get off that glorified armchair. It's painful watching you try to sleep on it." He was knocking around inside a box he had pulled out of the closet.

"Aw, Dr. Gottlieb, it's like you really do care," he said. He sat up and took a deep breath, which set off a chain reaction that left him wheezing and coughing, his eyes tearing up and clouding his glasses even further.

Hermann waited for him to finish. "I care a great deal about someone who looks and acts almost exactly like you. It's no wonder."

That was a cold shower of brutal, unasked for honesty. "Uh, yeah."

The awkward silence didn't stretch for long. "I also suspect your physical well-being is necessary for returning him, if your theory is correct and you switched places," he pointed out.

"Okay, wow, let's unpack that for a minute," Newt said. He pulled his glasses off and tried to clean them on his blanket. "It's a cold, dude. I didn't ask to hear you rationalizing why you cared if I didn't die. Like, I know assuming basic empathy for other human beings is kind of hit or miss as a smart decision when it comes to you, but I had already been going through my life figuring you didn't want me _dead_ even if you weren't actively hoping for me to stay alive." He set his glasses back on his nose. Now everything had a thin, blurry film over it. "However, I do appreciate that you outright admitted that my theory had merit, so thank you for that."

A hard plastic bottle of pills rattled as it made impact with Newt's head.

"I assure you, Dr. Geiszler," Hermann said, low, "I do not care for your well-being in the _slightest_ beyond what it can do for me, personally."

"Actions speak louder than words, dude." Newt checked the back of the bottle to make sure there was nothing in it he couldn't take with his own medication. Of course it was fine. He and Bizarro Newt took the exact same dosages, and Hermann would have known what his _partner_ couldn't take for a cold.

"Spare me your clichés, doctor."

Newt got up and switched to Hermann's bed. He took some pills, sipping out of a clear glass of water Hermann had left sitting on the nightstand.

"And spare me your _mouth_ all over something I _drink_ out of."

Newt licked the inside of the glass.

Hermann stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door.

Newt pulled the blankets up to his chin and stretched out under them. He couldn't remember the last time he had been in a bed and had this much space to himself. He was starting to nod off again when he heard Hermann leave the bathroom.

"I'm a little disappointed that being married to someone who is basically me in every respect other than actually _being_ me--" Newt said, looking Hermann over, "--didn't improve your sense of style in the slightest."

Hermann gave him a tight lipped, mocking smile. "I'm amazed that you seem to think dressing more like you would be anything like an _improvement_."

"I mean it, man. You didn't look half bad in that suit you and your _overwhelmingly_ better half made things official."

"I will say this again," Hermann said, "If you hate looking at me so much, I implore you to look anywhere else." He frowned, uneasy. "No, this would be the first time I said it to _you_."

"My Hermann's said it a few times, so don't worry about it."

Hermann rubbed his head. "When did you see wedding pictures?" He started speaking again, before Newt had time to answer. "No, of course, they would have been on his computer and of course you looked through it."

"Well, yeah." He pulled his arm out from under the blanket long enough to wipe his nose on his sleeve. "You have to wonder about my Hermann, and what makes him different from you."

"I believe he is probably wiser than I am," Hermann said, shrugging. "Less fortunate, perhaps." That was almost too quiet for Newt to hear.

"See? That's kind of cute? That other guy would never say anything like that out loud."

"'That other guy.' Newton. Go to _sleep_."

Newt kept talking until Hermann shut the door and left him. Once he was alone, he got out Alter-Newt's laptop and fussed around on it. He checked his medical test results, comparing them to whatever information he had on the guy who actually lived in this plane of reality. He was intensely curious about whether there was some significant physical difference between the two of them--something other than the placement of some scars and some weird art decisions his tattoo artist had made. He fell back asleep comparing brain scans.

\--

He woke up, hungry and sore. He opened his eyes a little and a blurry figure, distinctly Hermann shaped, was hovering over him.

"Shit!" he sat up, startled. "Don't do that!" He groped around for his glasses and found them on his chest.

"Well, excuse me for stopping by to bring you something to eat," Hermann said, irritated.

"Oh. You still scared the hell out of me, dude."

"Terrible manners. Is this how they taught you to behave in America?" Hermann asked. "I should just throw this food away." He set a container of soup on the nightstand.

"I had like this exact conversation with my universes' Hermann, except he was being an even bigger dick in that scenario," Newt said. "And give me a second to remember where I even am before you start pressuring me into gratitude that maybe you don't even deserve. It depends on what you got me. What'd you get me?" He couldn't smell anything, so it just looked brown and lumpy.

"You will eat what I give you, and you will thank me for it," Hermann said. "Or you will drag yourself out of bed and feed yourself, like an adult."

"Yeah, yeah, thanks." He tried it. It tasted like brown variety canned soup. At least it was hot and he didn't have to move to get it.

He told Hermann about looking over the medical scans, and how little he had found. Hermann had expressed an interest in finding some kind of marker that separated them, so he sat down on the edge of the bed, listening.

"I mean, it's basically that my place is vibrating slightly differently than your place, right? But I wouldn't be here unless I was on your frequency. That's impossible. So I don't know if there are going to _be_ any markers that link me to my own, uh, plane of existence."

"There will be something," Hermann said. He rhythmically tapped a pattern on his own knee, thinking. "I have observed something quite interesting about the rifts, actuallyMy suspicion is going to turn out to be correct--I can _tell_." He was staring into space, with an intense expression. "There are times when a breach closes in one location and, at the same moment it is closing at point A, another one is opening at point B elsewhere in the world. And these two events have a great deal more in common than events that do not immediately follow one another."

"So it's the same one?"

"Opening to the same slightly divergent reality, is my current theory. I noticed that _your_ particular breach actually was in two other locations prior to appearing in my bedroom. I believe there are only one or two open at a time, but they move around, convincing us that there was a never-ending stream of them. There still is, but at a slower pace than we imagined."

"This sounds like nearly baseless conjecture, Hermann," Newt said. His soup was gone. "And like you're chasing ideas that have nothing to do with figuring out how to get me back."

"Don't be a fool, Newton. I need to better understand what it is and how it works before I can even begin to figure out how to safely return you. _Your_ current plan will just-- _If it works in the first place, which it will not--_ send you off to some other completely wrong alternate reality."

"Maybe I'd be a rock star in that one," Newt said. "Like, a literal one, with awards and fans and albums."

"I'm sure that cockroach would be _delighted_ to be yanked out of the dark cracks of society he was festering in and brought here. How _useful_ he would be to my work. He could do drugs and entertain in the break room. While you were simultaneously disappointing your undeserved audience." He gave Newt a considering look.

"See, you're wasting a lot of breath trying to convince me not to go when you're so sure my plan isn't going to work," Newt pointed out.

"At least here, you have a similar enough situation that you can still do the work you dedicated your life to doing," Hermann said. "Newton, your idea _won't_ work. But if you figured out how to alter it so that it did, it would _still_ be a terrible idea."

"But it _might_ work, and then no one has to sleep on a futon," Newt said.

"No, it _will not work._ The rifts are already set to--"

"How can you act like you know that? You don't know that! You can theorize all you like, but if you don't experiment--"

"There's no reason to experiment on a human, first, you imbecile!"

"Oh, I'm sure the test subject rat would be able to tell us all about the various differences in its life that would prove--"

"At least we would be sure your experiment wouldn't roast it alive!"

"...point." Newt said. He held up his hand for a time-out so he could cough. Hermann got him a glass of water and came back and sat down on the bed again. "All right, animal testing first."

"If you would just wait, I think I am starting to understand what happened. If I am correct, Newton, it's not outside the realm of possibility that we could alter one to connect you to the proper reality."

" _Or_ you just really hope that's true, because you miss the guy who looks like me. How many alternate realities are there, dude? Infinite?"

"We can't be sure at this point." His back was curving, and he seemed to be shrinking in on himself.

"I might just have to accept that getting back to the exact right place isn't going to happen and I'm going to end up like the plucky genius hero of _Sliders,_ looking for a home that is literally impossible to ever find."

"Honestly, you might as well stay here, then," Hermann said, quiet. "From what you have told me, all you would really need is a divorce to return your life to something very similar to what it was. And there is no real point sending you off if the Newton I get in return is not the one I married."

Newt wasn't sure what to say to that. He found himself talking anyway, which generally didn't lead to positive consequences. "I just got here, and we're already splitting up? Break my heart, why don't you, doctor? How did that even happen, anyway, the whole marriage thing? I keep thinking it over, and I'm really not into marriage as like an institution or a tradition, or in any way, really. Okay, I guess the party would be okay, and it's _romantic,_ but I am actually quite against it on almost every level. It makes me think that's the big difference? Bizarro Newt is less of a hardcore rebel, less willing to take a stand."

Hermann huffed out a laugh. "No, he had the same _tedious_ lecture he shared with me whenever marriage was mentioned. Honestly, the only two things you liked about it--the celebration, and the, um, romance--neither of them were a part of this. It was entirely practical." He looked down at his hands, and then started fussing with his ring.

"What, so like, you got married for tax benefits?" he scoffed.

"Those are useful, but it was more that we both had...very brief periods where we were unwell, for different reasons. I stayed for two nights in the hospital, and you ended up in the ER for your own reasons. Afterwards, I considered my own health, and yours, and what the odds were that we were going to remain in perfect health for the rest of our lives. I mentioned this to you, and we decided it would be the simplest way to ensure no one would stop us from seeing each other if the other became gravely ill. We are not young men anymore, Newton." He turned his head and glanced at Newt for a second, before looking down at his hands again. "I appreciated--no, that is the wrong word. I _understood_ what his position on marriage was, so I suggested we treat it like signing any other petty legal document. He was amenable, and purchased the rings as, well, a way to show me he understood, even if he could not respect or appreciate my own position on weddings and marriages." He laughed, again, to himself. "He would fly into a fit whenever we were able to leverage the license into an advantage. He was very angry about this room, for instance, though you will note that we are not living in separate quarters as a form of protest."

"Well, sure you should get to share a room, but why does that piece of paper mean you get to do that, but some other people who care about each other just as much--those assholes have to stay in singles? It's bullshit. I don't care what your argument was--Newt was right, 100%, to get pissed. And also to take the room, because you only live once, right? We should have gotten bigger rooms just for saving the world, anyway. Like, we _earned_ this room."

"You are confusing who actually earned this particular room, Newton," Hermann said.

"No, see, now I'm pissed on my own behalf, because I totally should have been given a bigger room, but back on my world I'm stuck in a tiny cubicle because I didn't sign my name next to someone and submit it when I signed up for this job," he said, irritated. "When alter-Newt gets back here, you tell him he doesn't have to be angry in the abstract at this, anymore. He can be pissed because there are alternate realities where he, specifically, is being screwed over by this bullshit."

Hermann rubbed his head, a little sad and lost. "I will do that."

"You humor me a lot more than my own Hermann does," Newton said. "I appreciate that. I really do."

"It's a bad habit." Hermann got to his feet.

"You leaving? No, man, you have to stick around and tell me a bedtime story until I fall asleep. I'm sick and pathetic, right? Just tell me about what you're working on."

"You only think it's boring because you're incapable of understanding it," Hermann said. "Go to sleep, you pathetic child. I already gave you more of my time than you deserved."

He flicked Hermann off and told him to leave, then, because he didn't want to look at his weird face anymore. He was enormously grateful, in an way that made him feel sick to his stomach, that this version of Hermann had actually had a conversation with him. He had felt isolated enough at his job before he got sucked into an alternate dimension where even fewer people knew how to deal with him.

\--

He nodded off for a few hours, laptop next to him on the bed, glasses askew on his face. When he woke up, he was groggy and not entirely aware of where he was or what was going on, so when he opened up the laptop and saw he had a message from uncle Illia, he absently replied.

 

Illia: _It's been months since we heard from you. Just send a quick message letting us know you're still alive, all right?_

Newt: _oh hi sorry_

 

He hit enter and immediately remembered why he hadn't been talking to his family. _Shit._ He tried to will the entire internet to stop working. He wasn't ready to find out in the middle of some awkward conversation exactly how different his and Bizzaro Newt's memories were and then have to explain to his family that he wasn't their Newt.

He wasn't sure he wouldn't end up blurting it out anyway even if his and the other guy's memories were the same. Everything that happened was weird and kind of cool and a huge part of his life at the moment, and he was shit at keeping secrets that fit those parameters. He might even be willing to admit it was a character flaw.

 

Illia: _Newt! Tell me how you've been doing? Is it work, that's been keeping you from giving your old uncle a call back?_

Newt: _ive been busy sorry_

Newt: _messed up from this flu so if i say something weird_

Newt: _thats why_

Illia: _I was about to give your Hermann a call, but I know he's been busier than anyone else_

Illia: _You're sick?_

Newt: _yeah im not allowed to work today like keep from spreading the contagion_

Newt: _not that it'll work_

Newt: _this place is packed so full everyones going to be sick by the end of the week_

Newt: _and its making me so miserable its like_

Newt: _good_

Newt: _i'll be over it and having a good laugh at them for not getting their influenza vaccination_

Illia: _Just like you didn't._

 

Newt started to write "I didn't know I was coming here," but some alarm bell went off in his head. Alter-Newt had lived here for almost as long as Hermann had.

 

Newt: _maybe it's hypocritical but_

Newt: _they're assholes so_

Newt: _*shrugging emoticon*_

 

He probably actually could have gotten vaccinated once he got to the facility. The Shatterdomes he had worked at had regular vaccination campaigns for whatever was going around, so why shouldn't the medical staff here?

Would his vaccine even work against this strain? This was getting back into his _War of the Worlds_ inspired questions about his physical immunity to alternate universe germs, and that was not a road he wanted to go down, mentally.

 

Illia: _Strange how wherever you work, everyone else is always so terrible._

Newt: _yeah, i know, right?_

Newt: _look uncle illia im going to dose up again sorry about not keeping in touch_

Illia: _That's my cue to go_

Illia: _Well, tell that husband of yours that once things settle down again I'm expecting a visit._

Illia: _And a longer one, this time._

Newt: _yes of course_

 

He said goodbye, not sure what else to say. Hermann had met his family, apparently, and his family wanted to spend more time with him. Which struck him as an unlikely reaction to meeting Hermann. Probably they were just resigned to having him along when Newt visited, those poor bastards.

Had he met Hermann's family? Like, not just seen their faces on a videochat window as he walked by, or Lars Gottlieb at a distance, at a work related convention? Had he given the eldest Gottlieb a piece of his mind, like he always wanted to?

Had he sat at a table and pretended he didn't hate Lars' dad while Hermann kicked him under the table when he opened his mouth to say anything? Maybe he'd lucked out and Hermann's family didn't approve of him. Was that something only a complete dick would think?

The door rattled, and Hermann walked in. He gave Newt a disgusted once-over look, and turned away to lock the door.

"Dude, did I have Christmas dinner with Lars Gottlieb, ever?" Newt asked, freaking out just a tiny bit. "Alter-me, I mean."

"My family has never celebrated Christmas," Hermann said, answering the wrong question. On purpose.

Newt groaned. "I don't have time for this, Hermann! I'm having a crisis! How could I sit and eat with him and not tell him off for helping make the Death Wall happen? How could I not sit at the table unable to eat because I had both middle fingers in the air for the entire meal?"

"He had several drinks beforehand, if I recall," Hermann said, shrugging. "I expected it to have the opposite effect and for the evening to be a complete disaster, but for some reason he instead spent the entire night talking about _guitars_ with my _mother_ for some godforsaken reason."

"Your mom plays the guitar?"

" _No._ She was being polite, and everyone was relieved he was talking about anything other than kaijus or that mistake of a wall."

"You're married to me and you still say 'kaijus'?"

Hermann rolled his eyes. "Stop babbling. No, just stop talking to me. Go back to sleep."

"I was sleeping all day. It's not going to happen," Newt said. "Oh, my uncle wanted me to remind you to visit next time you have time off."

"You spoke with him?"

"Yeah, I replied to a message when I was kind of out of it. He didn't notice anything."

"You might not have to keep it secret much longer. I suspect he and the rest of the world will be finding out soon." Hermann said. "I have heard the opinion expressed that finding out the rifts don't seem to be connected to the anteverse directly will dispel panic. I don't believe you specifically will need to be mentioned, but it will be easier to explain it to your family after it is common knowledge."

"I _really_ don't see the point in telling them unless I don't think I can get back, Hermann," Newt said. "You and your freakish kaijus-accepting husband can laugh about it over Thanksgiving dinner with them, sometime."

"He has never accepted it."

"That's something, at least," Newt said.

"No, he is still quite capable of picking a fight over the most inane nonsense," Hermann said. "Be reassured."

"Yeah, that food you kept arbitrarily deciding I stole, now that was an argument worth having."

"...I am ignoring where you are trying to take this conversation. Are you actually going to get out of bed to eat, or should I bring something back?"

"I'll get up," Newt said. He closed his eyes and rolled over, onto his side. Later.

"I will bring something back."

"Yeah. Does he like being babied?" Newt was pretty sure he could handle being sick on his own, since he had managed it for years and years.

"I have no idea, since you both have to complain about whatever I do when you are like this. He forgets to feed himself anything other than whatever garbage he can get out of a vending machine, however, so I _baby_ him by bringing him food to eat when he is sick."

"I guess that's fair," Newt said, easily. He remembered passing out in a chair when he was sick, years ago, when they shared a lab. Hermann had somehow upended the chair and yelled at him to get out of the lab before he infected everything.

Hermann's mouth twitched in irritation. "I expect you will be out of _my bed_ by the time I return. Don't think I will coddle you so much that I have to sleep on _that_ thing." He sniffed, at the cot.

"Wasn't going to suggest it, dude." He hoped someone was fired soon, so he could snag their room. He was convinced that things could safely revert to normal if some marriage-related guilt wasn't forcing Hermann to let him share the room. Hermann would stop being _nice_ in weird ways that made him sick to his stomach.

\--

"Since I've already catalogued the other differences I've observed between my own universe--Earth-Prime, as I've designated it--and this one, I guess I need to take a minute to separate Hermann-Prime and Hermann-zero. That's where the most obvious observable differences have been, and I figure that if _someone_ were more forthcoming in the name of science, I could possibly pinpoint the moment where two universes diverged."

"Do you have to do this in here?" Hermann asked. "Or at all, _honestly."_

"Hermann's totally right on this. This is for science, so I should go and record my observations in the lab. Maybe some of the assistants will have something to add."

Hermann sighed. "There are ways to ask me to leave the room without being aggressively obnoxious and driving me out."

"This is completely legitimate, what I am doing here, Hermann," Newt said. "If I arrived here and the main difference was something like frog coloration, I would go out and catalogue the differences in the frogs. I've already done this to myself myself--tattoo differences, a few scars, identical DNA--"

Hermann interrupted him while he was pausing to breathe. "Yes, yes. I suppose you need _something_ marginally useful to keep you busy while I am doing actual work."

"Okay, difference one was going to be that you're slightly less of a douche to me about my work, but I actually think Hermann-Prime has been less of a shit about that since we drifted. I _will_ admit that trying to figure out the exact moment of divergence is something I am _personally_ curious about as a scientist and as a normal curious human being and it is something that may not turn out to be useful. _However,_ you should know just as well as I do that a biological difference between myself and Alter-Newt could be what links me specifically to my own universe and makes it possible for me to get home." He would actually prefer to be working on something useful, but he couldn't transport himself into the future when the results from the last group of invasive tests started coming in.

" _Really_ , Newton, you were going to consider that a verifiable difference? Like your _perception of me_ can be considered objective? For that to even start to work, you would have to have been working on the same project in both universes."

"So this is a useless waste of time, but you also have an opinion on how I'm doing it wrong?"

"Is that recorder your private journal? 'Dear Diary, my co-worker was _mean_ to me, not like the Dr. Gottlieb I am used to. He keeps expecting me to engage in actual science. The nerve!'"

"That sounded exactly like me. Wow. When I'm listening to this later, I'm not going to know when I stopped talking and you started."

"You always try to drag me down to your level," Hermann said.

"Like that's even hard."

He watched Hermann slowly stand up, finally actually making the decision to leave. Newt felt a twinge of guilt about throwing him out of his own room, but was too irritated in an undirected, general sense to turn off his recorder.

Hermann stopped by the door. "What is this about, honestly?" He didn't look at Newt. "Curiosity? 'What would possibly convince me to enter into a relationship with that man?' If that's what this is about, I would rather directly answer some personal questions than whatever it is you're doing now."

Newton sighed and some of the irritation slid away. "Dude, don't bother. It feels like my business, but it really isn't my business, is it?"

He glanced over. "That doesn't usually stop you."

Newt walked over and put his hand on Hermann's arm. "See, statements like that make me wonder how the hell it happened. But I'm not going to ask. That would be incredibly invasive, if I asked. Wouldn't it? Yeah, it would." He looked at his hand, on Hermann's arm. He hadn't shaken it off, or even seemed to register it. "But maybe not? Except just asking isn't a big deal, because you can just turn me down. Like, I won't throw a tantrum if you tell me it's too personal. So. I'm going to ask, and you're going to say 'no,' and we're both going to go back to the real work we are supposed to be doing right now. Or you aren't supposed to be doing, because it's your day off, but that you're going to do anyway."

Hermann smacked Newt's hand and Newt let it drop to his side. "If you've already determined the outcome, why bother?"

"Testing hypothesis, man. Maybe low impulse control." He shrugged and took a deep breath. He held up the recorder and switched it off. "What the hell happened?"

Hermann tipped his head to the side, considering.

"Wait, you're actually going to answer?"

Hermann shrugged. "After the breach closed, we had time to breathe. You left the PPDC very soon after you drifted with him, correct?"

"Not as quickly as I wanted to," Newt said. The organization had been in shambles, with no one clear on whether it still existed even before the final assault. He wasn't getting new samples. He had real job offers, ones that actually paid enough money to buy new clothes and eat in restaurants, and he needed a vacation. He was going to be fired, anyway, along with the bulk of the rest of the staff.

"He stayed," Hermann said, "Until they fired him and almost everyone else. I was shuffled over to one of the organizations that took its place--the one that preceded this one--and had to move, so I could continue my work on improving the breach sensors. The part with me is probably similar?"

"Yeah. I tried to convince him to quit." They had been in constant communication, after Newt left, for the first few months.

"I was able to get an apartment, instead of living in some godforsaken barracks. He moved nearby, until we gave up on being idiots and he moved in with me. This happened faster than was wise, but we were not alone in being rash. The world, after all, was no longer ending."

This was interesting, but Hermann had skipped answering the actual question. Maybe "what the hell happened?" was too vague and overarching. "Is 'we had time to breathe' code for something?"

"I have no idea how to simplify that further for you, Dr. Geiszler."

Newt groaned. "Do I have to ask? Apparently, I do. Did we make out in the helicopter on the way back to the Shatterdome?"

"Newton! _We_ have never, and _will_ never. He and I did not, either." Hermann was doing a lot of not-looking-directly-at-Newt, at the moment. "It was two weeks, I believe, before things...escalated."

"Escalated." Newt stared straight at him.

"How much detail do you want from me?" He turned his head and stared straight back, unflinching now. "If there was _tongue_?"

Newt winced. _"_ Gross, no thank you, that is _not_ what I'm asking, _Hermann."_ Great, now he got to have a turn at being embarrassed by this conversation. He tried to remember if anything notable had happened two weeks after the breach was destroyed.

"You are twelve. There was no specific moment, other than that one, but that was more of a natural end to matters that had been progressing since our drift. Possibly before that moment, but I honestly have no idea."

"Your letters were always very passionate," Newt said. "Before we actually met, I might have thought you had a crush on me. A little bit of one. I might have thought that."

"You thought _he_ did. Everything will get more uncomfortable than it already is if you keep conflating us."

"You conflate me and him all the damn time, because it's easier, linguistically-speaking. Any conflation here is mutual. And it _was_ you, because I am almost positive our realities hadn't diverged by that point. So we were literally the same people." He adjusted his glasses, thoughtful. "If you think about it, it's not like we're complete strangers--it's like we're meeting again after not seeing each other for a while. It's even following the same pattern meeting an old classmate would. Like, 'you married _that guy?_ What's up with your tattoos?' Etcetera."

Hermann sighed. "Or, 'I know we were old friends, but you can't just invite yourself to sleep on my couch.' There were always classmates like that."

"Did you keep the letters? I might remember if there are any differences in those."

"No." He frowned. "I didn't throw them away in a fit of pique, if that's what you're assuming. They were lost one of the times I moved." There would still be the emails, but Newt thought it was likely those were somewhere on Alter-Newt's laptop, so he wouldn't ask. Hermann looked suddenly ill, but seemed to force himself to continue talking. "It's...possible I was attracted to the person I thought Newton Geiszler was, from his letters." He shrugged. "Your idiosyncrasies were less irritating on paper."

"I knew it!" Newt said, clenching his fist.

"Honestly." He rolled his eyes and shifted his weight, uncomfortable. "Have you considered that the major difference between our timelines was your clear lack of interest? _I_ had the crush, and my letters were apparently the overly-passionate ones. My admittedly lewd joke is 'gross.' You find the entire idea inconceivable. I think we have puzzled out the answer to the question you're asking." He turned to the door, but had more to say. "If I am the same person who wrote you those letters, like you claim, I can admit that I was attracted to you, in some way, back then. I was never positive if it was intellectual, or anything else, but there was an attraction. So this was true of your own version of me. So where is the difference? It's you, _obviously_." He left, the door shutting with a firm click behind him.

Newt stared at the door, trying to think of something to shout through it. When he came up empty, he walked over to the bed and sat down, heavily, thinking. Mystery solved?

He shook his head. He remembered being into the version of Hermann he had met in those letters. He'd been so excited to find out where things would go when they met in person--he had been sure they would at least immediately start collaborating on a project. They would be friends, obviously, he had been _positive_. Things had gone to shit the second they met.

Drifting had been revealing. Hermann really was the guy he remembered from his letters, right alongside being the order-obsessed prick he had worked with for years.

It was more the actual offer to risk his life drifting with Newt that had made that similarity clear than the drifting itself, when he thought about it. Not that the drifting had been nothing. What had the other Newt thought about, post-drift, in this reality? If it was _him_ who had been the determining factor, and not Hermann, what had made him decide whatever it was he decided?

He put his head in his hands.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

"You will be  _delighted_ to learn that we have thoroughly disproven your narcissistic theory that the timelines diverged because of something you did, personally," Hermann said. Whatever this was about was important enough that he had tracked Newt down to the small storage shed outside the main building he had taken over and started using as personal lab space.

Alter-Newt had lab space, but in the time it had taken Newt to get a complete medical evaluation and return to the facility, it had been taken over, the samples he had been working on shoved into a freezer and no one would tell him which freezer it was. He found them weeks later and sorted through them out of curiosity, but he was more interested in figuring out how to go home so he just packed them up again and left them for his alternate.

Newt rotated in his stolen chair and gave Hermann a considering look. "Well, out with it, so I can pick it apart and explain to you how wrong you are."

Hermann glanced around. "What are you even doing in here? There's no temperature control. You can't possibly be working."

"Well, I'm not dissecting anything, obviously." He reached behind him, in between a stack of papers and a pile of "borrowed" electronics, and grabbed a small packet of vending machine cookies. He pulled out one of the remaining two, offering it to Hermann.

"Your hands still manage to be filthy."

Newt rolled his eyes, pulled off his grease covered gloves, and offered Hermann the  _other_ cookie, still in the package. He accepted. "Are you actually trying to disprove my theory by being an ungrateful prick, or are you going to present real evidence?"

Hermann walked over so he could stand by the small window fan that was the only thing keeping Newt from heat death. He chewed on his cookie, looking around. He was eyeing Newt's pile of electronics with suspicion.

Newt didn't care if Hermann figured out what he was building. "Why are you so positive that your butterfly-flaps-its-wings theory is the actual right one, anyway? You're too quick to decide you can reason out the truth, and that's what you're accusing  _me_ of doing. I'm going for the I-flipped-a-coin-and-the-universe-diverged theory, and it is just as likely to be right as your theory  _plus_ I have a way of proving mine and you have no way of proving yours."

"You're correct in that at least yours can be proven or disproven," Hermann said. "Whatever happened to you has happened to other people. The timeline divergence has nothing to do with you, specifically."

"What? You found them? Other people?" Newt jumped up from his chair. "How do you know that? When did you find out?" He paused, his mind racing. "That bullshit light show rumor, of course! From the tabloids and trashy conspiracy sites. Has anyone interviewed those people? The description was  _just like_ what happened to me, wasn't it?"

"Dr. Tso, the man who always volunteers to monitor the sensor in the middle of the night, the one you like--he remembered those particular rumors, and made the connection early this morning."

"God, I was  _just talking_ about that with Tso-Prime. Like about how bullshit all the public theories were, right before my breach opened up and I went to check it out."

"They sent someone to speak with each of them." He looked Newt over. "Though I suppose you will also want to. It might be a better use of your time than building this...wave scanner? I'm not entirely sure what the television screen is for."

Newt started to get distracted explaining what he was actually building, and then raked his hand through his sweaty hair and dragged himself back to the relevant topic. "Yeah, it turned out I won't need the screen and, yeah, I'm definitely introducing myself to those poor assholes. Everyone must think they're nuts."

"Yes, fine. I'm sure it can be authorized. But you see why this disproves your theory about this being  _your_ universe. As soothing as that idea must be to your ego."

"Gloating isn't a good look for you, Hermann. And there's crumbs on your chin."

At least he got the satisfaction of seeing Hermann overreact to having something on his face, like he always did. He actually didn't mind being wrong about this, or he wouldn't, if Hermann didn't have to  _gloat._

\--

There were two known cases of people getting "attacked" by a breach and passing out. Newt read the reports and looked up the people ahead of him who had been in charge of conducting the initial interviews, because they were  _assholes_ and he wanted to tell them off next time he saw them. They had asked a series of invasive questions without explaining why they were asking, so the answers they got were vague and basically useless.

Newt took it upon himself to drag along some translators and explained the whole situation and what he knew about it. His new best friends had plenty to say to him, grateful to be believed and have a real (if strange) explanation for what happened to them. They told him all about the little differences they noticed. since their encounter with the breach. They were visibly relieved to have an explanation for why, for instance, they had three children instead of two or why they had the same job at a completely different company.

"People act like they know me, when I have never met them," said the woman, Garcelle, through a translator.

"What I do, is I act like I'm a famous rock star. Everyone knows me, right?" Newt was thinking that maybe they should just quit with the bullshit and just tell everyone what the breach was capable of. More people might come forward, and maybe people would know how to keep safe.

"...that sounds like a good way to get myself fired," she said, glancing from the translator to Newt. "Or...get her fired. This is strange. What if she already lost my job for me?"

"Once you get back, you can make up for it doing paid interviews," he said. "Write a book. You're going to be a celebrity--we're the first actual humans who come from a different universe! That's awesome, if you think about it."

She seemed unsure.

He met with his other new friend a little later, and that guy was even more miserable once the immediate relief passed.

"If I go home now, I will always miss my daughter."

"Man, I'm sorry," Newt said. He was starting to think he wasn't cut out for this. Like, maybe a shrink should be telling them, or at least someone who spoke the same language they did.

The night before his flight back to the facility, he lay on his hotel room bed, laptop resting on his stomach. He ate greasy take-out and explained to his uncle and his dad what had happened. His mother wasn't online, so he could put that off for a while. Hermann also wasn't around, but he sent him a message anyway. 

 

Newt: as an info gathering mission i didnt get much

Newt: other than confirming that yeah

Newt: same thing happened to them 

Newt: but i left a pretty big impression

Newt: so thats something positive

Hermann: They would be relieved to have someone genuinely believe them, I suspect.

Newt: oh hey youre just invisible

Newt: hi hermann

Newt: yeah they were relieved and then depressed

Newt: like i said i left an impression

Hermann: They will adjust.

Newt: yeah or they wont whatever right

Newt: everyone is being such a huge dick about this

Newt: if they dont make a general announcement soon im just telling everyone as loud as i can

Newt: and i expect you to back me up on this hermann

Newt: we have to find everyone who had this happen to them and you have to send them back to wherever theyre from after you send me

Newt: and you arent going to find them unless theres a general announcement

Newt: no one wants people to think theyre nuts

Hermann: Of course I will do that, Newton.

Hermann: After I have figured out how to send anyone through, at all.

Hermann: Are you drunk?

Newt: what

Newt: no

Newt: im jetlagged and pissed off

Newt: and i just told my dad im not actually his son so 

Newt: theres that 

Newt: i guess

Hermann: Oh. 

Hermann: Well, that isn't entirely accurate, remember?

Hermann: You were his son up until the point where the timelines diverged.

Newt: so im like his long lost son? i just thought about how i basically have an infinite number of fathers and i creeped myself out

Newt: thanks hermann

Hermann: You are welcome.

Newt: im illegally sending him some confidential documents to prove im not having a mental health emergency

Newt: im giving you a heads up so that if they go to arrest me theyll have to arrest you too

Hermann: Just explain to them that you never technically signed anything telling you not to share information.

Newt: holy shit hermann

Newt: i mean i really doubt that would work but i appreciate the sentiment from you

Hermann: It might delay your arrest and give me a little more time to figure out how to send you home.

Hermann: I have no idea why we're discussing such a miserable hypothetical.

Hermann: They will never realize what you did, or find this chat log.

Newt: are you messing with my laptop right now

Hermann: I have no idea what you mean.

Newt: you had better not delete anything important off of here or i will be pissed

Hermann: You really need to organize your files better.

Newt: i have a system! 

Newt: he has a system whatever

Newt: ok dads off having a panic attack or something

Hermann: Go to bed.

Newt: nah

Newt: but im going offline so finish what youre doing

Hermann: I'm not doing anything.

Hermann: And it would be long done by now, anyway.

Newt: goodnight hermann

Hermann: Goodnight, Newton.

\--

People were shifted around, sent to other facilities. Newt got his own room. He'd been starting to think about camping out in the storage shed.

Hermann stopped wearing his wedding ring. Newt had no idea when that had happened, but he assumed probably after they contacted the press about what the breach was actually doing.

Moving out had been strange. He woke up in the morning, expecting to hear Hermann snoring across the room. No one woke him up by banging loudly on the futon frame with a cane.

He managed to contact his mother just before the press release came out. Once his family had more than just his word, they stopped treating him like they weren't quite sure he didn't need medical help. They answered every question he asked about his childhood and their memories were close enough that any variation could be accounted for by the natural flaws in the way memory worked.

"Honestly, the only difference is that our Newt never calls this much," Illia said. The line crackled a little, and sometimes seemed like it was going to cut out completely. "We never blamed him, you, whoever. That was important work and it was basically you and Hermann at the end."

"I can't get over that you're on a first name basis," Newt said, amused.

"I actually called him right after you told us the news," Illia said. "Your dad and I, we decided he's still family, even if it's a long time before you fix things. I don't know how your mom feels, but she hasn't met him."

"That's kind of weird. Isn't it? That's really weird, right?"

"Maybe if it was a divorce, we'd take your side and cut him off. But, what is this? It's like our Newt went missing in action. You don't stop talking to the husband when that happens, now do you? That'd be cruel."

"I guess that works, almost, as a usable equivalent," Newt said.

"Well, we like him, anyway. Maybe it'd be different if we didn't."

"What about me? Do I still get invited?" he asked. "Or get invited the first time, depending on the theory we're adopting for this conversation." He and Hermann had almost decided on a post-drift moment of divergence, and then Newt had remembered his tattoos--the differences in the designs that had made it obvious he was a different Newt in the first place. He had gotten those well before the drift, so now they had no idea again.

"Well, sure. You're the same Newt, just--here's another equivalent for you--a Newt who got knocked on the head and lost a few years. We talked that over, too. Once the shock wore off, we knew it wouldn't do any good to treat you like a stranger. God, did you meet that poor Haitian woman? Pretending she knew all those people for months so they didn't think she was a nutcase, after no one believed her?"

"I met both of them, actually. I really lucked out that Hermann noticed the difference immediately."

"If I ever see one of those things, we'll find out how fast your old uncle can run. I'm fine with the way my life is going, thank you."

"Even if you weren't, there's no guarantee the good shit on the other side would continue once you swapped."

There was silence on the other end of the line, for a few seconds. When Illia spoke again, his voice was uncharacteristically subdued. "Newt, sorry. It would be cheating, is how he thinks of it."

Newt's silence was even longer. "...what?" He pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the number, and then said, louder, "Wait, what?"

"Don't worry, kid. This conversation never happened."

He could actually picture his uncle winking at him. "I wasn't talking about  _myself._ That was purely a theoretical I was coming up with for your sake." He rubbed his head.

"Right, right, of course."

"Dammit, uncle!" his voice went up a pitch. "I don't need this."

"Don't bust a vocal cord, Newt. Like I said. I never said anything."

"Yeah, but you're just--I don't need you thinking--" he groaned. "Fine! You never wildly misunderstood what I said in a way that made me uncomfortable. Moving on."

"I'm just saying, Newt..."

"No."

"I could definitely understand if you--"

"No. I'm hanging up."

"All right! Moving on!"

Uncle Illia meant well, except that he didn't at all, and he was kind of an asshole.

\--

"Newton, this isn't going to work," Hermann said. He was holding tightly onto the edge of the sensor display, not looking up from the screen.

"This is my shot, dude. We're almost on top of it! You know you've been itching to test out the B.R.E--"

" _Must_ you persist with that ridiculous acronym?"

"Absolutely, yes."

"It isn't ready to be tested, especially not on a person. I thought we had already decided it would be dangerous for you to be the first trial? Have you given up on any semblance of sense, since that conversation?"

"Rats aren't going to work. You have to have this much mass to ride the breach, man."

"So we wait until they bring in a larger animal." He pulled off his glasses and turned to look at Newt. "Or we wait until they've finished duplicating the technology elsewhere, and eventually someone will be in the right place at the right time to properly test it. We don't just leap over into human trials because our first idea was impossible."

"I'm not saying I'll jump in, Hermann," Newt said. "But I can still aim and shoot and you can get the readings you need."

"You will  _so_ jump in. I swear, you have a death wish. If you think it will impress people, you will throw yourself into a lion's open mouth to see if he chokes on you."

"I really don't. Have a death wish, I mean, and that's rich coming from you, Hermann Gottlieb, who is basically identical to some prick I know who voluntarily mind melded with a kaiju  _and_ with someone he apparently thinks is violently unstable. If we pinky swear on it, will you  _believe me_ when I say I'm not going to possibly vaporize myself by throwing myself into an altered, untested, and barely understood phenomenon."

Hermann betrayed all logic and reason and put his had on Newt's arm, gripping it tightly. "No. I will not believe you. Even if you are being honest right now, there is no point risking your safety for this."

Newt's chest felt tight. He looked at Hermann wide-eyed, distressed. "The 'barely understood phenomenon' part was a dig at you, by the way."

He replied in a low hiss. " _Excuse me_ for not risking peoples' lives because you want to go home. You selfish  _brat_ ."

"No, I'm not excusing you. You want me gone just as much as I want to go. More, really."

"Fine." His grip was going to leave a mark in Newt's arm. "I won't deny it. But what are the chances that I get what I want if you kill yourself pushing this too quickly?"

The rift probably wouldn't exchange living tissue for dead. They could tell when it was scanning, now, and it didn't do anything near meat. That was a relief, for a Newt who had read a few too many horror stories, but if he got himself killed, alter-Newt's return was suddenly a lot more complicated. "If you aren't willing to take any risks, Hermann, you might as well get used to having me around."

"This may shock you, but that is preferable to having you dead! Because you couldn't wait until we were  _sure._ This isn't the world at stake, Newton. It's  _you,_ and it isn't worth it." He finally let go, turning back to the screen. Newt could tell he was embarrassed by his own outburst and trying to rein himself back in. His blush was a sharp red gash high on his cheek.

"Oh. Well. Thank you for that." He cleared his throat, a little embarrassed. "Admitting you care if I die or not. We're having a real moment here. But this  _won't_ kill me, I promise. The theory is sound, right?"

"Yes, but if there is some flaw in my reasoning, as you are constantly pointing out there could be, and you are--" Hermann broke off, squinting at the screen. "Did you hear an alarm?" He put his glasses back on. "I need to set up an alarm for this. This whole argument is moot, Newton. It closed."

Newt rushed over and leaned in front of Hermann to look, himself. "It is  _not._ I had fourteen hours of testing to do on that bad boy--it doesn't get to close yet. Did it move?"

"No, I really don't think it did. It expended its energy and closed, entirely. Someone ignored our advice and stepped too close, is my guess. The  _idiot_ ."

"Maybe they did it on purpose. Or it was the person on the other side who got pulled in. Did the drop off happen here?"

"If you will get out of my way and  _stop breathing_ on my  _equipment_ , I will go check the rest of the world and find out for you."

Newt stepped back, and Hermann deliberately slammed his cane down right next to the toe of Newt's boot as he walked past. "You have something against me breathing on your equipment, all of a sudden?" He realized what he said a second after he said it. Oh, right, that was a line he had spent the last couple months trying not to cross.

Hermann went still. "At the moment, I have a problem with you breathing. At all. You're a biologist. I'm sure you can figure out how to rectify my difficulty."

"No, you can't say that two minutes after you outright admitted you value me alive," Newt said. "You don't get to do that."

"I never said I wanted you to  _die_ from it. Just be silent, passed out on the floor, while I get some actual work done."

"Hermann. Are you flirting with me?"

Hermann's shoulders rose up as he clenched his fists in badly contained rage. " _Dr. Geiszler,_ " he hissed, "I am  _married_ ."

Newt opened his mouth to reply, not sure what he was going to say. His own words got to be a surprise for everyone sometimes. He was probably going to spend a lot of time regretting it.

Hermann's phone went off, saving Newt from himself. "Figure out something useful to do," he said, to Newt, and then answered.

He spoke, quietly, for a few minutes. Newt blatantly eavesdropped. The call had to be about the breach, and he was supposed to be studying that, so listening in was useful.

"Who is it?" Newt asked, when it sounded like things were wrapping up. "Who was it, I mean? Was it an accident?"

Hermann made increasingly irritated faces at Newt until finally he was able to jab the end call button. "It would have been easier to get answers for your questions if you could shut your mouth for two minutes."

"Well, but you have the answers anyway, right?"

"You are an irritant, Newton. A rock in the shoe for everyone who meets you. But, yes, I can answer your question. It was one of the people who works here. One of the lab technicians, actually. His...counterpart is extremely disoriented."

"Do I know him? Like, not specifically him, of course. I think we've advanced past the point where I need to clarify what I mean when I say things like that, but here I am doing it anyway."

"Yes. I have seen you speaking with him, Dr. Tso. Apparently night monitor duty is not the only thing he volunteered for. They say he seemed to purposely approach the breach. I gather that no one wanted to shoot him, or get too close themselves."

"Yeah, I do know him."

Hermann nodded. "Would you say he was more curious about the breach than the other people who worked here?"

They gossiped about Tso's mental state, and then Hermann got another call saying they had brought him in. Newt ran off to find out if he would be allowed to check up on him. It was pretty unlikely, but he thought he could use his own status as a freak doppelganger to get in.

He turned that display of logic into a stream of nonstop words that convinced the on-staff doctor to let him in. Tso seemed a little freaked out, and Newt was the only one in the building who could reassure him that it wasn't the end of the world.

"It's probably even weirder for you than it was for me," Newt said, "And I'm not downplaying how much I flipped out about it. But there's another me out there who was probably fast asleep when a bunch of light tentacles yanked him into another reality, and he probably had a worse time. So, like, I get it." He wondered what alter-Newt was up to. Hopefully the two of them were working in alternate reality tandem, and they were both racing to be the first one to figure out how to go back home. He hoped he kicked that other Newt's ass.

"You're supposed to be comforting me?" Tso asked.

"It's just not as big a deal as it seems at first. Some stuff's different, sure, but we're figuring this out. That's probably why our Tso jumped right in like he did. He gets to have a cool experience for a couple months, tops, and then he goes home."

Tso seemed like he was actually calming down. "The big difference between me and  _your_ Tso is that he's a huge douche! In my reality, people aren't like that."

"You're already adapting to the lingo, dude. Had they figured out the deal with the portals, on your side? Over here it was because of me, entirely."

"They know," Tso said. "And it was because of me. You were doing something with kaiju. Like, I never went by your lab because the whole section of the building smelled horrible, but I heard you had figured out an agent that made your kaiju samples decay even faster."

Newt lit up. "I did?" At least some versions of him had gotten samples in a timely manner and hadn't gotten distracted by cross dimensional travel before he got to work on them. "Do you remember anything specific about the agent?"

"No, man, the whole hall always smelled like death, or more like I wanted to die for going down that way."

"Okay but what specific kind of death did it smell like? I'm guessing there was ammonia smell in there, but can you think of anything else?"

"I don't know? Like specifically it smelled like my own body decaying as I lay in the hall and no one came to rescue me because who would ever go that way? I guess Gottlieb risked it to yell at you sometimes, but I kind of just imagine him yelling at my dead body for blocking the hall." Tso tugged at the sleeve of his hospital gown, cold.

"Hermann would visit me? Were we...was he...was I married to Dr. Gottlieb?" Was it weird to ask that?

"What the hell? No?" A distressed look crossed Tso's features, as his imagination took him someplace he didn't want to go.

"Thank  _god._ Now someone at least understands how messed up this is. Everyone here just acts like it's completely normal and reasonable for me to be married to Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, and  _I'm_ the one who's wrong. I'm going to take this evidence and say that this reality is the outlier."

"You're married to him, here? Oh my god, what if I'm married?" Tso said. "What if my mom isn't dead here, holy shit, what do I say to her?"

"I have no idea about that, man," Newt said. "You could look it up in your file."

"Aren't you supposed to be making me feel better? Isn't that why they let you in?" Tso looked even more freaked out than he had when Newt came in.

"This is probably all part of the process," Newt said. "You were going to realize this at some point, right? I bet asshole-Tso had a computer and you can go back to his room and look all this up."

"You're here because you wanted to ask what they knew about the breach! And maybe about yourself. This has nothing to do with me."

"We were kind of friends, dude," Newt said, slightly insulted. Of course he was going to have a lot of questions, and he wanted to know all about his research in alternate realities, but it's not like he couldn't also give a shit about how much he was failing to calm Tso down.

"We were  _friends_ ?"

"Okay, if you take that worse than thinking you might have a wife you've never met, then I'm going to have to take that personally."

"I'm just--we spoke, like, twice?"

That made sense, when Newt thought about it. If he had more luck getting adequate samples, real lab space, and all his equipment, he probably wouldn't have modified a broken vacuum until it could detect kaiju. That led to his and Hermann's boat trip and those conversations where Hermann had proposed numerous increasingly unlikely theories just to show Newt how impossible it was to make any real statements about the breach, and then Newt wouldn't have modified some more tech and spent so many nights in the lab waiting for a breach opening to try and disprove a few of the testable ones.

So, was it because the mail was slow in his universe that he was stuck in this other one? He could be testing rates of decay on kaiju liver. Right this second, he could be doing that, instead of being insulted by someone he had thought was kind of okay.

Since his brain was determined to make him miserable, he came up with yet another theory. Maybe this third Newt didn't have chronic insomnia, so he hadn't gone into the lab in the middle of the night all the time, which was why he and Tso hadn't formed the sort of bitter acquaintance that springs up between two people who, for whatever reason, never sleep at night.

He was going to call this Newt, who got to bury his hands in decaying kaiju flesh and slept through the night, "Jerk-Newt." That way he could tell him apart from Bizarro Newt and himself, Newt-Prime, which was another bonus.

He explained his theory about why things were different, and his talking seemed to calm Tso down again. It was more likely the guy's moods were just fluctuating as new information came in, Newt realized, so he was a helpful not-jerk Newt and suggested Tso get some sedative-aided sleep and let everything settle before Tso thought about it anymore.

He reassured him, again, that they were  _so close_ to figuring out how to send people back home. And until that happened, hey, maybe his mom really was alive and he would get a chance to say hello to her again. That wasn't a chance people ever really got, right?

That made Tso start hyperventilating and Newt decided maybe he would just let the medical staff try to calm him down. Maybe Newt was kind of terrible at this. He left Tso in a drug aided sleep and went to grab something to eat from the break room vending machine.

\--

Hermann was in the break room, staring blankly into a cup of tea. He didn't seem to notice Newt walk in, but spoke up when Newt was leaning down to get his chips out of the vending machine.

"That isn't the only thing you're eating," he said.

Newt sighed and loudly opened the chip bag. Sometimes this Hermann (who cared about his well-being beyond whether he lived or died) got on Newt's nerves more than he endeared himself.

"Really?" he asked, still facing the vending machine. "I'm not buying that you're any better at this, Hermann. I bet I was the one who cooked, and you just sat there and complained about whatever I put in front of you. Did you notice how they aren't offering food right now, and how I don't have access to an actual kitchen?"

"We both cooked," Hermann said, huffing.

"That was exactly my point, thanks." He walked over and sat down in the chair across from Hermann.

"How did it go?" Hermann asked, after a brief pause. "With Dr. Tso."

"He freaked. Like, worse than I did, which is kind of interesting considering an alternate version of himself volunteered for this. He doesn't actually know me that well." He shrugged. "It might be worthwhile questioning him on what his people know about the breach. They're in the same place, but got there differently, so there could be some valuable data there? I don't know. You're his boss over there, too, so you are probably the best person to ask, especially since it sounds like you're basically the same over there as here. Not getting a lot of Hermann variation, generally."

"I will speak to him in the morning," Hermann said.

"Well, not much Hermann variation other than the obvious thing--we aren't together over there, either, which makes me think this is the outlier universe and you are the aberration here."

"I doubt it works like that, but I would never have claimed otherwise," he replied, shrugging. "I might have occasionally doubted our relationship would last, but this is not at all how I predicted it would end."

Newt laughed. "What? Low odds on 'husband sucked into alternate dimension?' Once again, your predictive model was lacking, Hermann, and I'm a little disappointed in you for it."

"I didn't actually make a--" he broke off, pursing his lips.

Had the aging predictive model dig hit a nerve? "It's not like it's actually over yet, Hermann. We're  _so close_ to figuring this out."

"The theory is sound," Hermann said, relaxing slightly.

"Did you really make predictions about how you and the other Newt were going to end it? Like, was there a timeline? I bet there was a timeline." That would actually be pretty hilarious, if it were true.

Hermann's hand, resting on the table, clenched into a fist, "I did  _not."_

Newt leaned forward, increasingly interested. "Woah. Did you fight about this?"

Hermann shut his eyes, forcing himself to relax his hand. "Newton, this has nothing to do with you."

"That wasn't a 'no.' Just noting that. I could definitely see myself getting pissed about you doing that. I mean, it's kind of morbid. " He ate a chip.

"I never said a word to him. And it wasn't--I didn't--" he groaned and sipped his tea, miserable.

"What was it--like, 90% chance irreconcilable personality conflicts? 10% chance it ends because one half of the relationship is charting out how it's going to end?  _Shit,_ Hermann."

"It wasn't on purpose, Newton. I just--I mean, honestly. You yourself have called his and my relationship a  _freakish aberration_ , basically impossible in the possibly infinite number of realities. Is it any wonder that I wasn't always  _optimistic_ ?"

"The difference here is that you started it at all, and also were the one to propose, so I was kind of jumping to the conclusion that you thought there was a chance it would last."

Hermann looked at him. "Well. I  _hoped."_

Newt's stomach twisted itself, and he looked down at his hands, uneasy.

"'Irreconcilable personality conflicts' puts it fairly well. I might hope that they would be, well, reconcilable, but I still worried when we fought. We almost didn't make it through a month living together. He moved into a hotel for a week."

"What did I-- _he--_ do?" Newt asked. He cleared his throat. "Since I'm assuming you would blame him for whatever happened."

Briefly amused, Hermann answered, " _Wrong_ , Dr. Geiszler." He sat up a little straighter. "It was a mutual issue, but mostly me. Really, Newton, I know you haven't had much luck in your relationships, but neither had I. We could both be equal in our incompetence."

"So, that didn't answer the question, actually," Newt pointed out. "But I'm deeply interested in you admitting you were wrong about anything, and I definitely want to hear more about that." He frowned. "Even if I guess you just admitted how wrong you were so you could tell me how wrong  _I_ was. So we're back to where we started." 

"That is personal," Hermann said. "It wasn't anything specific, really. We couldn't--" he broke off. "No, this is  _personal_ ." He spoke quieter, to himself, "Why am I talking about this with you?"

"Don't ask me, man," Newt said. He was a little relieved that Hermann was about to put an end to this, since he couldn't seem to stop himself from asking intrusive questions.

"And why do you keep prying?"

"Morbid curiosity?"

"Charming."

Newt tipped his head back and emptied the crumbs from his bag into his open mouth. Hermann frowned at him as he slammed the chip bag against the table and loudly crumpled it up. "I don't know! Part of it's" --he waved his hand--"I feel sorry for you."

Hermann's lip curled in disgust. "Don't."

He shrugged and tried to toss his crumpled chip bag into the closest garbage container. It missed, falling short a foot.

Hermann watched the throw, and then looked at him, like he expected Newt to get up and put the bag in the garbage can by hand. They stared at each other for a minute, neither of them moving. Hermann looked about ten seconds away from putting his shaking hands around Newt's neck.

After a tense minute, Hermann shifted, ready to stand up and end the conversation once and for all.

Newt decided to get up, too, and once ready to leave they both looked at the bag on the floor, laying pathetically far from the wastebasket.

"Don't you dare pick that up for me, Hermann."

"If you pick it up, you will have to admit that you didn't intend to dump it in the middle of the floor," Hermann said. "Even though that is entirely obvious to the only other person in the room. You would have to admit that you have terrible aim, and completely failed. You are a pathetic little man who thinks himself such a  _rock star_ he won't even clean up after himself." He walked over to throw away his styrofoam cup.

"Say 'rock star' again," Newt said, trying and failing to roll his own "r." "Nice speech, by the way."

"Oh, do shut up."

 


	4. Chapter 4

Newt tried to get some sleep, he really did. There came a point, however, when he was just getting himself worked up trying to force himself to wind down.

He was still trying to plot out the exact moment this timeline diverged from his own, no matter how many times Hermann said it was a "fruitless endeavor."

He wondered about what the other Newts were up to--the ones he knew about, and the ones he couldn't even imagine. Was Asshole-Newt fast asleep in his bed, at this exact moment in time? Was Bizarro-Newt working to figure this shit out, too, wide awake and wondering how Hermann was handling things without him?

What if that Newt gave up on coming back? What would he do, then? What would he do  _with Hermann_ ?

He sat up, scrubbing his face with his hands. Bizarro-Newt was almost definitely  _not_ getting up to anything regular Newt wasn't, he decided. He was still working on getting home, and Prime-Hermann wouldn't go along with it, even if that Newt turned out to be a cheating asshole.

Did it count as cheating? Sure. Except, was it  _as bad_ as regular infidelity? Would he, standard Newt, go after an identical version of his boyfriend, if he was separated from him? He... _probably_ wouldn't.

Unless he thought there was no chance of seeing his real boyfriend again; then all bets were off.

Okay, better question. If there was a mix-up and he ended up switching places with someone else, so there were two Newts in one place, would he fuck himself? Yes. Yes, he would. He wouldn't even think about it, really, why would he? He had watched enough sci-fi to know that he wasn't alone in this.

He leaned over the edge of the bed and grabbed the laptop off the floor. He loaded up some pictures of alter-Newt and looked him over, considering. It was a fantastical enough scenario that it distracted him from more immediate ones.

Of course, he wouldn't hit on  _this_ version of himself, since alter-Newt was married. Or maybe Hermann had watched some of the same shows he had, and didn't consider it cheating? Could they get his okay ahead of time? What if alter-Newt tried to  _involve_ Hermann?

Back to square one. He frantically clicked around, looking for another distraction.

He found a small number of video chat recordings with nonsense names in a suspicious-looking folder, and they were not ones he remembered making. These were alternate reality videos, conversations he had never had, possibly with Hermann. He hovered over one, worrying that he might get an eyeful of lab partner junk if he opened it. But there would be some warning, right? Things would start to get weird and he could throw the laptop across the room before he saw anything. He was going to keep this a  _mild_ and not a  _gross_ violation of Bizarro-Newt and Hermann's privacy.

The on-screen conversation started out normally. Hermann was wearing pajamas, which would have been strange to see back when they were in Hong Kong, but was pretty much just mundane anymore.

 

_"So you're just going to tell me everything went fine, but not that I was right?"_

Newt's own voice, saying words he had never said, sent a chill down his spine. He almost tossed the laptop, and there wasn't a dick in sight.

_"I_ said _you weren't going to freak, and now I wish we'd bet on it," alter-Newt continued._

_"If there was anything riding on it, I would have lied," Hermann said, shrugging. "It went terribly."_

_"You know there's always a tape of these things and I'd find it. God, man, at least think things through."_

_"If I was sufficiently traumatized, I'm sure you would not have it in your heart to watch," Hermann said, dead-pan._

_"You really just keep underestimating what I'll do to win, Hermann."_

_Hermann smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling._

 

Newt--Newt-Prime, Regular Standard Vanilla Newt--snapped the laptop shut. There was a knot forming in his throat, and he swallowed, repeatedly.

He had fucked up. He already had, well before this point, and he was just realizing it. Hermann had been right, for a change. He should not have gotten himself caught up in trying to figure out the exact moment the timelines diverged.

He opened the laptop again. He tried a different video. There was no point pretending he was doing anything other than being nosy, here. This video was dated a few days later, and Hermann was at the same conference.

 

_Newt started right in, as soon as Hermann popped up on the screen. "What the hell were you thinking, bringing up--"_

_"It has not been thoroughly discredited, so I will--"_

_"You sound like--"_

_"I will not--"_

Hermann kept talking as Newt interrupted him, and standard Newt couldn't pick out what either of them were saying, anymore. If he had some context, he might have been able to guess, but he didn't remember this conference. He checked the date on the video, and tried to remember what he was doing, then. He thought that might have been about when he had been trying to find a mate for his pet kaiju skin parasite on Craig's List so he could start up a breeding experiment in his living room.

_Hermann spoke louder, cutting through. "Why on earth are you wearing a bandage? Did you injure himself?"_

 

He took a closer look at the tiny image of alter-Newt, on-screen. Now Newt knew exactly when this was.

 

_"Nah, man. Ceramander needed a touch-up, no big deal."_

_"Oh. It's a_ tattoo  _thing," he said, voice thick with scorn._

_"You know you want twelve of your own."_

_"I want no such thing. In fact--" he stopped a second to squint at the screen. "Newton. Where is your shirt?"_

_"It's hot here, Hermann. You noticed the bandage right away, but you just noticed that? That's hilarious."_

_"They basically make it look like you're dressed when--" he shook his head "--never mind that. You don't have...expectations, do you?"_

_"Expectations?" Newt quirked an eyebrow. "You're kind of going to have to be more specific here, babe."_

Newt started. The conversation had been reading almost normal to him, up to that point.

_"You know exactly what I mean. We've talked about this."_

_"Yeah, right, I forgot that the government or maybe God himself might hack into our chat and--"_

_"That is absolutely nothing like what I said."_

 

Hermann interrupted way too much, Newt decided, and it was really irritating. He forgave him, however, since Hermann's natural prudishness was saving Newt from accidentally seeing junk. Newt had known he couldn't depend on an alternate version of himself to keep things professional.

The conversation turned back to Hermann's glaring missteps during his presentation. Newt clicked rapidly through the hour long conversation alter-Newt had saved, for some reason. Why would he have saved it? To shove it in Hermann's face when it turned out he had been wrong, obviously.

 

_Hermann sighed. "I really can't waste my time with this for much longer."_

_"There's no need to keep it up, since time is going to prove me right anyway. Go to sleep."_

_Hermann clenched his teeth, forcing himself not to get drawn back in._

_"Oh, hey, everything checked out, by the way. There's plenty of time for me to get there and pick you up."_

_He relaxed. "Well, that's a relief, at least. Obviously, I won't make you drive on the way back."_

_"I'll be loading up some barf bags into the glove compartment for myself, then."_

_"Yes,_ hilarious. _My driving record is impeccable, compared to some people's."_

_"How are you not overloaded with debt from speeding tickets? I don't get it."_

_He sighed, again. "Good night, Newton."_

_"Oh, right, yeah, go to bed. Night, babe."_

_"Make sure you take care of your..." his lip curled, "...tattoo thing, whatever it was you did to yourself. Take care of yourself."_

_"Yeah. Miss you." Newt looked distressed, for half a second. Like he hadn't meant to say the last part._

_"Oh. Well. It won't be very long," Hermann said. "...and of course I feel the same, my dear."_

_"Of course you do," Newt said, still embarrassed. They both said good night again, and then signed off._

 

Newt felt embarrassed for himself in a more distant way than he was used to.

It had been obvious from the start that Hermann, this Hermann, was in love with Bizarro-Newt. Not just because he shared a bed with him and wore a wedding ring. Those were just the most obvious symptoms of the illness.

Newt was stuck hearing about alter-Newt from Hermann, so his view of his doppelganger's perspective was skewed by Hermann's stilted delivery. Like, he had agreed to get married because it was convenient, apparently? And the way Hermann described them hooking up in the first place made it seem like they had both been "eh, let's just get this over with."

It had almost seemed like alter-Newt was just in it for the hell of it. That was the impression he had been getting, and he hadn't thought about or questioned it. But now he had actually watched alter-Newt have a conversation with this Hermann, and, wow. That impression he had gotten?

It was complete  _bullshit._

He was head over heels in love with his lab partner; of  _course_ he was. When had he ever not messed up and gotten overly invested in relationships, even when he hadn't meant to? This other Newt was almost exactly like him. How could he have ever let himself believe that his alternate wasn't as into this as Hermann was?

He couldn't even blame Hermann for his own warped perspective, other than as a matter of principle. Hermann had told him everything, and he should know Hermann well enough to get what he meant, what he was leaving out.

They had taken a while to figure things out and get together.  _They were pining._ God, that was embarrassing. Or maybe, not really? He wasn't into marriage as a general concept, but he had agreed to it because  _Hermann had gotten sick and he was terrified he wouldn't be able to visit him in the hospital._ He wore the damn ring. He saved chats of them arguing when they were separated so he could watch them again.

It should not have shocked him as much as it did, but the entire time he had been trying to figure out how this reality happened, he had been doing his best not to think about how it could actually happen, internally. How that switch could have flipped.

It had been a good idea to avoid thinking about that, except he should have just not pursued any part of the question in the first place, because it was always going to take him right here.

He was catching the infection. Instead of avoiding the plague-zone, he had plunged right in, not even bothering with a respirator to protect himself.

It wasn't Hermann's fault, even though he really wanted to blame him. He couldn't help slipping up and treating Newt like someone he cared about when he looked exactly like someone he loved with all his heart. He let him sleep on a cot in his bedroom even though it was painful for him to even be around Newt, at first. When he wasn't being careful, he would put his hand on Newt's shoulder like it was nothing, and then he would just move on. The behavior was so ingrained, he never noticed he was doing it.

Newt loaded up the next video, miserable. Jumping through any random portal, fuck the consequences, was looking more and more tempting.

\--

One of the big screens in the main lab was lit up, and every scientist, lab technician, and janitor-who-happened-to-be-passing-by was standing around it. They were loudly discussing the breach on the screen, and the experiment happening on the other side of the world.

Newt hovered by Hermann's desk near the back of the room. Hermann was at his computer, gathering as much information as he could before they attempted to send the test subject through the breach.

"Calm down, Newton. You are a distraction," Hermann said.

"Sure, calm down, okay. Maybe if there was something I could actually do here."

"You could  _sit down_ ."

The last two attempts had failed, but quite a few people had bet on success for the third attempt, so Newt was not the only person overly invested in the outcome.

"Maybe later," Newt said. He left to go pace closer to the television.

It became clear in a few minutes that this experiment was going to be another failure. Newt walked back over to Hermann, barely hearing the disappointed chatter behind him from the people who had lost their chance at winning the betting pool.

"I'm putting my money on 'it turns out this is never going to work and we will eventually figure that out and kick ourselves for wasting so much time," Newt said.

"I wouldn't bother," Hermann said. "It's favored, so even if you won--which you won't--you would get barely anything for your effort. Someone else would get to hold your money for a while."

Hermann and alter-Newt had a joint account that Newt now had access to. Hermann made significantly more money than he did, from several sources, and Newt got mad looking at the numbers. He fantasized about withdrawing everything he could and making some ludicrous purchase before hopping off into another reality.

He asked Hermann who he bet on, but Hermann denied even considering wasting money on something so frivolous. He was a figure of authority, the head of the entire division.

"Is this like poker, Hermann? Did you get locked out?"

"If I  _was_ locked out it would be for no good reason, because we don't understand this well enough for me to have any better a chance at guessing than anyone else," Hermann said, with a touch of bitterness.

The lab cleared out, quickly, after the screen was shut off. Even Hermann seemed like he was thinking about leaving Newt and the two people on-shift monitoring the sensor. He switched off the holo-display and started organizing his desk.

"I should just go through, myself," Newt said, walking back over after another round of pacing. "We actually have a specific place to send me, for one thing, so we wouldn't be shifting the breach signature slightly and hoping for the best over and over."

"No," Hermann said. "Honestly, we have been over this a hundred times. I am tired of discussing it." He got up.

"Maybe if I pull a Tso, the Hermann over there will be amenable," Newt said.

"Is that seriously what you are going to call it?" Hermann asked. "It sounds vulgar."

"Yes because that was the relevant point, thanks for listening."

"I will help you, Newton, but not help you get yourself  _killed._ I am listening, but we've been over this and over this and I am  _tired."_

Newt knew it was dangerous, and stupid, and a bad idea for a hundred different reasons. He agreed. He still was getting closer and closer to just doing it anyway.

They couldn't even send him to the place he wanted to go, yet. They knew how to change where the breach was going, but picking a specific target was still beyond them. But maybe other-Newt or other-Hermann had it figured out, somewhere else. He just needed to get away from  _this_ Hermann. Before he did or said something he regretted.

"Oh, hey," Newt said. "This is related, but not really. Turned out you were right about something."

Hermann turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. He was waiting for the punch line.

"No, I am completely serious. I should have laid off trying to figure out the divergent point and done literally anything else with my time. I wasn't going to mention it, but I'm trying to use positive reinforcement to train you out of being wrong all the time."

"Did something happen?" he asked, confused.

"Well, I haven't figured it out, for one thing," Newt said.

Hermann leaned back on his desk. He really did look tired. "You won't. Something could have gone one of two directions, and it did both. That is the current prevailing theory, not just what I think. It was nothing notable or exciting or romantic."

"I read the same articles you did, Hermann," Newt said. "But that's not the point that I'm talking about,  _obviously._ I mean, once reality has split, what happens after that? You flip a coin in both places, and circumstances are close enough to being the same that most of the time it lands on the same side. But sometimes it doesn't, and the accumulated differences get bigger and bigger and have more of an effect until we're sharing a bank account and someone decides they want a third kid or a different job. What was the coin flip, with us, dude? That's what I'm regretting going after. Maybe I can piece it together, but it's not worth it."

Hermann nodded, slowly. "You should concentrate on getting home. You have been acting strange. Is it homesickness?"

Newt laughed, high pitched and a little desperate. "Maybe!" Hermann was looking concerned, and it was making him feel that familiar nausea. "Like, do you ever think about it? I bet there were any number, even an infinite number of me at that breach at the same time, and which one gets sent here?"

"If it's infinite, then an infinite number got sent to identical versions of this reality, Newton, clearly."

"Well, just one of me got sent to this one specific reality. That's the point I was going to make. Stop being pedantic about infinity, Hermann."

"We don't have enough information to determine if it's infinite or not, though if it is finite, it must be--"

"Hermann! I don't care! You are the only one who cares, you and some other people who wear too many layers of ugly clothes."

"I have no idea why you are having a fit. I thought we could talk about something interesting, instead of listening to you go off on some tedious diatribe."

"I'm just--why did I have to get sent here? No, I mean, why did  _I_ have to get sent  _here_ ? Specifically. I'm ignoring you, Hermann, unless you're going to freak out about that with me for a while."

"Newton, I have tried to make this whole situation as painless as possible for you, but you act like I am personally acting against you. Trying to make you miserable by  _existing_ , it seems like. I will not apologize for living the life I have, with whoever agrees to stay with me."

"You got screwed over, though, almost more than I did. You should be freaking out along with me, really. What if you're stuck with me, here, forever?"

"That is not going to happen," Hermann said, easily dismissing him.

"Okay, but you don't actually know that! Ten years from now, if we're still throwing test animals at rifts and watching nothing happen--or! What if tomorrow, they stop opening? All the energy is used up, we're done. We've lost the chance for anyone to go home and we all just have to suck it up and deal. What if you can't pretend it's going to all get fixed and we're going to think ourselves out of this?"

"We might be able to reopen them ourselves," Hermann said. "I have considered that possibility, actually."

Newt groaned and rubbed his eyes, under his glasses. "That is not the  _point._ " He paused. "Even though that's kind of awesome. A tiny bit awesome. That's probably as much awesome as you can manage, but it's really actually pretty impressive. Could you get us into the anteverse? No, shut up, that's not the point. Those were just examples that were supposed to lead you to thinking about my  _actual_ question."

"Which was...what would I do if I had to accept that our current situation is not going to change?" Hermann asked, picking out each word.

"Bingo! Great job following the conversation, Hermann, congratulations!"

"I would never open a new breach to the anteverse. The idea is absurd," Hermann said.

"Okay, that one was on purpose, and you are a complete prick."

"We've discussed it, haven't we? I would get a divorce, even though we aren't  _really_ married, just to clear up any legal issues. I would continue my work here, until I was no longer needed. I would not be ecstatic, but I would deal with it and move on."

"You wouldn't have to get a divorce," Newt said. He sank down into Hermann's chair. "You really wouldn't."

"I shouldn't have to, you mean, but it would be simpler for you and everyone if you legally slipped into the same place he was. No one would have to be issued any new IDs, for instance, and you would still receive his paycheck."

"That's not...at all what I meant, Hermann," Newt said. The energy seemed to have drained out of him, in the last five minutes.

"Well, I have no idea what you meant, then," Hermann snapped. "You are all over the place, for this entire conversation, and I am  _tired_ of exhausting myself further trying to piece together what you are so worked up about. You said--" He broke off, hand tightening on his cane.

Newt laughed. "Come on, man. Like, I'm almost exactly the same guy, right? We're just missing some personal history."

"Newton." Hermann looked down at him, worried. "I believe I'm misunderstanding you."

"It doesn't even have to be a big deal," Newt said. "It might be..." he trailed off. It might be what? ...nice? ...something he really wanted, now, and didn't know how to turn off wanting, and now was kind of ruined forever when it came to interpersonal relationships with any number of Hermann Gottliebs? ...actually kind defaulting to being a big deal, huge, even, no matter what he had just said?

"Newton." Hermann crossed the small space between them, and put his hand on Newt's shoulder. Newt looked up. "Newton, I will never,  _ever_ be with you, in that way. I need for you to understand that. It isn't the same and it can't ever be the same, for me."

"Oh." His voice was very small.

"I thought you despised the idea. I would have said, earlier."

"No, it's fine. It's completely fine. Don't apologize, because it was really more for you, the idea, than for me. It's kind of weird that you see me  _that_ differently from him, but I'm glad we clarified things." He was humiliated, and he felt like his heart had been torn out of his chest. "Good talk."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be? You have no reason to be." He got up, brushing Hermann's hand away.

He looked worried, for a second. "Newton, please don't do anything stupid."

"You mean, like, anything else?" He tried to make his exit look like he wasn't storming off, like he just happened to decide to leave at that exact moment. He probably wasn't even fooling the lab assistants who hadn't heard a word of their conversation.

 


	5. Chapter 5

_Newt looked in a mirror. He almost recognized the face that he saw._

\--------------------------------------------

_Years earlier:_

 

An energy drink was sitting on the table next to Newt, unopened. He was distracted flipping through the photographs that were the only accessible remains from the most recent kaiju attack. They were interesting, but not interesting enough to have the same effect as choking down another 5 hour energy. He had no clear memory of the last time he had slept. His joints ached, and he flipped back and forth from being too hot and too cold. Sometimes he blinked and he looked at a clock and ten minutes had passed.

His chin met his chest; his hand went slack. The photos slid back onto the desk. This time, he didn't start awake.

Hermann continued working, oblivious, for another hour before he climbed down from his ladder and stepped back to scan over everything. He wondered, idly, if Newt had left for bed. He checked the time, and then checked on Newt.

When he saw Newt asleep at his desk, courting headache and neck pain from the position he was in, he just rolled his eyes and went back to work.

That didn't last long. He was getting tired, himself, and now that he was aware of the time, it was suddenly difficult to ignore his own tired aches. He set down his chalk, brushed off his sleeves, and walked over to Newt.

"Newton," he said, loud and harsh.

Newt didn't move. He was fast asleep in what, Hermann suspected, was the first time in days. He was erratic as a general rule, but he had been absolutely impossible to tolerate, recently.

He would just leave him to suffer when he woke in the morning, he decided. Maybe it would teach Newt a lesson. He couldn't possibly be doing his best work, on so little sleep.

Still, Hermann hovered. Newton's glasses were aimed precariously at the end of his nose, about to slide the rest of the way off. They would hit the ground and most likely be fine, but Newt couldn't see more than a few centimeters in front of his face. He would step on them and break them, and was too much of a fool (and the work too insistent and all-consuming) to have gotten a new spare set after he had dropped the last one in acid.

He reached down and gently plucked the glasses off Newt's nose. He set them on top of a messy stack of photographs, where Newt was likely to notice them after he woke up.

Hermann shook his head and left. He wasn't sure why he had bothered, but he didn't dwell on it, either.

Newt woke up with a crick in his neck. He found his glasses and assumed they had fallen off and landed there. He opened up the warm can of energy drink and knocked it back, getting right back into his work.

 

_[Or:_

 

As Hermann pulled the glasses away, Newt opened his eyes and squinted up at him. "Hermann?" he mumbled, not really awake.

"You are a disaster," Hermann said. He was tired enough, himself, that a small note of fondness found its way into his voice.

Newt reached out and grabbed his glasses out of Hermann's hand. "What time is it?" How long had he been out? He had a gland engorged with liquid he needed to check on, before it popped.

"Just go sleep in a real bed, you self-destructive fool. We both know your work isn't important enough to drive yourself to death over."

"You walked over the line to tell me to go to bed? Aw, Hermann." He stretched his arms, arching his back. "I didn't know you cared."

"I don't."

"Yeah, sure." He looked at the clock. "Wow, Hermann, you _hypocrite._ Take your own advice and leave me alone while I actually accomplish something." He brushed dust off the front of Hermann's shirt, and got his hand bat at for the favor. ]

_\--_

 

Newt never meant to leave a party. Not any part, but this one, especially, the one they got to have because they had saved the world.

Hermann even stayed. He was very _aware_ of Hermann, which was probably a post-drift thing that would go away in a couple hours. There would be other lasting effects, a lot of them he couldn't really guess at because they had drifted with a fucking kaiju (like the pair of stone-cold badasses they both were).

At least he wasn't the only one messed up that way. He would look over, to check on his drift partner for the thousandth time, and Hermann would look up at the same time and their eyes would meet. Newt grinned whenever it happened. .Hermann smiled back, a few times, but then he started walking over. With intent.

Shit. Hermann was going to drag him to a doctor, to get looked over. He knew. He could try to escape but he felt like he might just kind of fall over if he tried to move too quickly. The beer maybe had been a bad idea, but he felt zero regret.

"This is enough," Hermann said. He pressed the palm of his hand against Newt's back.

"What's enough? I'm not done here," Newt said, petulant.

"You _are_ done." He looked suddenly uneasy. "But fine. Goodnight, Newton."

"Hey, we kicked ass, man. You should stick around."

Hermann shook his head.

"Night, then." He grasped Hermann's shoulder and squeezed. The room was spinning, gently, and he ached everywhere. Whatever leftover adrenaline he had been riding on had flushed itself out of his system.

Hermann nodded, once, and started to make his way through the crowd. He looked pale and seemed unsteady on his feet and Newt thought that maybe the last 24 hours hadn't been great for Hermann's health, either. He felt a twinge, watching him leave, and ended up pushing his way through and following him out, half-empty beer bottle still in hand.

Hermann stopped, halfway down the hall, and turned. "What is it?"

The noise was less dense here, but Newt still didn't bother answering until he had caught up with him. "Hey, uh, never mind. Let's get out of here. I think I hit a wall."

"You certainly look like you did."

"More like had a ceiling fall near me? Today was--" his breath hitched "--it was something else, dude."

Hermann looked him over. "Yes, I know."

Newt shifted, feeling himself coming unhinged. Did he regret what he did? No. Maybe a few parts of it, sure, but he couldn't regret stopping the apocalypse. But the entire day was starting to flood over him and for a few seconds, he wasn't entirely sure how many legs he was supposed to have.

And here was Hermann, and he should have been dismissive and blaming him for what he did to himself, but instead he kept staring, looking more and more concerned, his body language practically screaming that he wanted to step closer but not entirely sure how to actually make that happen. "If you think you are going to the lab, or to your bed, you are very mistaken. I am taking you to see the doctor."

Newt took a deep breath, and then walked the rest of the way over to Hermann. "Yeah, okay." He didn't want to go, and he didn't think anything that went wrong in his head because of the drifts was going to be something a normal doctor could actually help him with, but he was picking up on Hermann's concern and maybe he could stand to get the cut on his head stitched up.

He nudged Hermann with his elbow and they started walking.

"I wasn't the only one who drifted with a kaiju, so you get to come in along with me," Newt said. They were taking their time getting there.

"It's hardly necessary," Hermann said. He kept glancing at Newt, like it was a strain for him to _not_ look at him. "It was unpleasant, but I did not bear the neural load myself."

"Unpleasant" was not at all the term Newt would have used. Like, he could see going negative, but if you were going that direction to describe the experience, you had to go all the way with it. Newt thought maybe "awesome" was a good word for it, if you used the actual meaning for "awe."

"I never would have thought you had it in you, honestly," Newt said.

"The fate of the entire world was at stake, Newton."

"Sure. I know better, now, obviously."

Hermann's lips twitched into a brief smile. He nudged Newt with his elbow and Newt linked their arms. When they reached the on-staff doctor's office, Hermann detached himself. "Go on in, then."

"Yeah, not by myself, dude."

Hermann sighed and looked Newt over. "Mm, fine." He looked like he was going to say something else, for a second. Newt thought it was going to be something about their drift, but Hermann quickly straightened out and pushed whatever question he had aside. Newt was right with him, there, They could deal with drift shit when they were less exhausted.

They went in, together. They released Hermann after a few hours, but Newt was stuck on a hard medical cot for three days before they let him out. Hermann visited, each day, bringing along papers with work he was insistent Newt get started on. It was irritating, but Newt knew it was just an excuse to check up on him.

 

_[Or:_

 

Hermann agreed, but he didn't move. He was leaning, lightly, against the wall and forcing himself not to look at Newt.

Newt was getting a seriously uneasy vibe from him. He could tell Hermann's leg was bugging him, like he sometimes felt actual phantom twinges in his own leg and he hoped that would stop happening soon, but that was not what was getting to him.

"Will this...linger?" Hermann asked, quiet. He straightened his posture, shaking his head. "Never mind. Let's get this over with."

"Will what linger? Like, specifically? Are you getting the weird extra limb thing I'm getting, because I wouldn't mention that to the doctor if I were you. For a little while, I was--" He had another moment of feeling completely overwhelmed by everything that happened. He needed to process, and he wasn't doing that until after he slept. He had to record every little detail they had gotten out of the kaiju, so he needed to be able to think about it without freaking out.

"Newton, take a deep breath." Hermann was breathing heavily, and Newt realized that his proto freak-out was getting to Hermann, and they were going to trigger a feedback loop.

"I'm fine, I'm completely fine," Newt said.

"Yes," Hermann said. "You are _safe,_ Newton, all of us are, now." He glanced at the door to medical, like he was considering shoving Newt in and letting them deal with him.

Newt sank down on the floor. He knew that. "Did you feel it, when the Breach collapsed?"

Hermann nodded. "It was very quiet, suddenly. Newton, I am not getting down there with you."

"Yeah, no, stay there." Newt nervously ran his fingers through his hair. If Hermann got down on the floor, he probably wouldn't get up again for a few days. "I'm fine--I just need to take a second."

"You could have taken that second inside," Hermann pointed out. "So we could get this nonsense over with."

"Look, if I'm freaking out even a little when I go in there, you know they aren't letting me out for a week." He didn't want to be stuck in there. It would be boring, which made his brain try to fill the empty spaces with a lot of bad shit he didn't want to get into.

"That's...possibly true," Hermann said.

Their eyes met, and Newt knew that Hermann was on the same wavelength as him, as far as spending way too much time in a hospital bed.

Hermann sighed and carefully sat down next to Newt.

"Um," Newt said. Well, it was too late to stop him, really.

"It's fine," Hermann said. It meant about the same thing as Newt's earlier "I'm fine." It would be fine; it wasn't a big deal. He would figure it out.

"Have you noticed any side effects from the kaiju? Not the eye trauma or the bloody nose, like..." Newt trailed off, his voice quiet. He shifted closer to Hermann, so their shoulders were pressed against each other.

"I am assuming you are having side effects, other than the noise and absence of it after the Breach closed," Hermann said, also quiet.

"It would be useful to know if they're from my solo drift," Newt said.

Hermann nodded. "Do you..." his voice got even quieter, out of embarrassment, "...have you been feeling as if you should have...wings?"

Newt grabbed Hermann's hand and held it tight. " _This is the coolest thing._ It's more like a feeling like there should be added weight on my back, except also an--"

"--an awareness, yes, that the weight has a purpose."

"I need to record our observations before we start to forget, but I can't do that in there," Newt said. "God. Did you just finish my sentence again? That is so normal compared to the side effects from the kaiju, but at the same time it's so much more messed up, I'm not sure I can really deal with it right now?"

Hermann's head fell back, and he closed his eyes. "We could just avoid _dealing with it_ forever."

"Yeah, that sounds like an accurate projection of our future behavior if you analyzed our history," Newt said.

"It was more a statement of what I was hoping, really."

"Yeah. Here's a projection, then: I'm going to put my arm around you in about ten seconds, and you're going to be okay with it, and neither one of us is going to question why we are okay with it."

"Well, it's obvious _why_ ," Hermann said, as Newt let go of his hand and put his arm around him.

"Thanks for getting down on the floor with me," Newt said, "And for, shit, I guess a lot of other things, today. But, that's the immediate thing I'm thanking you for."

"There's no need--" Hermann broke off as Newt put his head on his shoulder. He rolled his eyes. "If you fall asleep here, I'm telling the doctor you need a month of observation."

"You wouldn't do that," Newt said. "Like, I am actually positive you wouldn't."

"Don't fall asleep here, Newton, or I will strangle you awake."

"...not so sure, there," he said, grinning. "You smell _horrible,_ Hermann." Stale dried sweat and vomit, mixed together into an olfactory cocktail that almost made him pull away again.

" _Really,_ Newton, do you have even the _slightest idea_ what odors you have been accumulating for the last ten hours or so?"

"I'm acclimated to it, so what do I care?"

"If I bother you so much, _move."_

"Nah."

They heard footsteps coming down the hall, and Hermann went very still. Newt looked up, curious. He recognized one of the women from J-Tech, but she was so drunk that luck was the only reason she didn't trip over Newt's legs. She passed by without even acknowledging them.

"No one cares, dude," Newt said.

"Yes, but I don't want to have to _discuss_ it."

Newt nodded, and put his head back on Hermann's shoulder. "One more minute, and we can go."

He felt Hermann rest his head on top of his. The hall was quiet. His thoughts were blurring and Hermann was warm.

Something banged, loud, down the hall, and they both started. It had been more like ten minutes, and he was pretty sure Hermann had been asleep for the last five.

Newt helped him up off the floor and they went in.

Drift partners got to stay together in the medical bay, if they were both injured, and if only one was sick, their partner was allowed to visit the same as a relative would. Hermann visited.

\--

Two days after the end of the end of the world, Newt was so bored he had stolen a pen and was drawing the outline of a potential new tattoo around his ankle. He was sure Hermann was about to visit. Most of the immediate strangeness of their drift had gone away--he dreamt about destroying cities, and about people he had never met, but the phantom wing sensation was periodic and not constant like it had been. Still, he was sure Hermann was making his way down the hall.

The on-duty nurse came in to tell him he had a visitor. The nurse was a man in his early 40's with short, neat hair and a stern demeanor. He thought _oh, hey, he's Hermann's type_ and was uneasy because he had no idea where that came from. He tried conceptualizing Hermann's type, but couldn't do it. He could, however, think about people and categorize them as Hermann's type, or not.

So by the time Hermann actually showed up in his curtained off area, Newt was in an odd mood and not entirely sure he wanted a visit, after all.

"What _are_ you drawing on yourself?" Hermann asked. He had Newt's laptop under his arm, and Newt no longer regretted the visit.

"Like, okay, I can't actually draw, but do you see it?"

"Is that the...Newton, that looks terrible. The anteverse looked nothing like that."

"I can't pay someone to design it for me unless I can explain what it looked like," Newt said. "And I'm bored. Is that my laptop? Gimme."

Hermann rolled his eyes and handed it over. "No one could find it because it was under garbage."

Newton ignored him for a minute, concentrating on the world of non-tedium that had been opened up to him.

Hermann pulled a chair over, next to Newt's bed, and sat down.

"Bring me real food next time," Newt said.

"They can't be keeping you much longer," Hermann said.

"At least another day," the nurse said, pushing aside the curtain and coming in.

Newt glanced over at Hermann, trying to read his expression. Did he actually think that guy was hot, or had Newt's wires gotten crossed? Was he going to try to flirt? He had to see this.

Hermann mostly looked irritated, probably that the guy had just walked in without announcing himself. He was silent while the nurse gave Newt his medication and checked his bandage. Hermann seemed to relax once it was just the two of them again.

"You kind of hate him, don't you?" Newt asked.

"Why would I?" Hermann asked.

Because he was a nurse, Newt realized. Hermann low-key despised every medical professional he met, but badly pretended he didn't.

Newt shrugged. "I dunno, man. I don't get why you think he's hot, either, but you really go for guys with that professional military vibe, don't you?"

"Newton _, really,"_ Hermann snapped, his face starting to color. "I have no idea where you are getting any of this from." He glanced at the curtain and Newt realized that Hermann was probably worried the nurse could hear them. Newt didn't really care.

"I didn't ask to know this, Hermann," he said. "You probably are having the same thing happen to you."

"But I am polite enough not to bring it up all the damn time," Hermann said. "You have _atrocious_ taste in music, by the way."

"So are you hearing music and thinking 'I bet Newton would enjoy this,'" he said, putting on a fake accent to imitate Hermann, "Or are you actually enjoying it yourself? Because if it's the second one, you should think of it as a positive side effect. For both of us, because I can finally stop having to listen to you whine every time I play something."

Hermann pressed his lips together, refusing to answer.

Newt grinned. Once he was free, Hermann was getting an education in the music of the last twenty years.

"The entire kaiju hive mind is less intrusive than you are," Hermann said, finally.

"Well, I _hope_ so."

They started talking about work, after a while, but that just made Newt want to leave even more. Samples were limited, now, and the ones he had left were just going to keep degrading. He needed to use what he had gotten out of the drift and apply it to his research. His experiments could be directed, less randomly flailing and hoping to land on something useful.

The nurse returned a few more times, and each time he tried to speak to an increasingly disgruntled Hermann. Newt was no help.

"See? He's into it. You should try to flirt with him. Unless this is you flirting. Like, if it is, I have to say it's not going to be very effective. Human beings generally smile when they flirt, Hermann."

"Please, shut up," Hermann said, head in his hands.

"I mean, the world is saved. We have time for a social life again. We can actually not work at some point."

"I had no idea," he said, sarcastic. "I am actually taking most of today off, but instead of visiting you I obviously should be off _dating."_

"Well, I mean, don't leave because I'm going to lose my mind here by myself, but yes. You should do that. Definitely."

"Pay attention to your own love life, Newton."

"Oh, believe me, I plan on it."

Hermann finally looked up again. His face was very red, for how minor Newt's teasing had been. He thought he probably needed to recalibrate after the drift, because he was just going to be naturally better at picking the softest targets. Plus, he kind of wanted Hermann to continue voluntarily spending time with him. If they closed down this Shatterdome and he and Hermann went on to other jobs, he needed for Hermann to not avoid at the very least videochatting with him.

"Okay, okay, okay, I'll shut up," Newt said. He reached over and put his hand on the only part of Hermann he could reach: his knee. "He's kind of an asshole, anyway."

"Maybe he _is_ my type, after all, then," Hermann muttered.

"Ha, I know what you mean," Newt said. He patted Hermann's knee, and Hermann's eyes flicked down to look at Newt's hand.

Maybe he didn't actually know what Hermann meant. He left his hand where it was, waiting for Hermann to react.

"...don't presume that because we have drifted, you understand anything about me," Hermann said.

"Yeah, that's like page one of the handbook," Newt breathed. He rubbed his thumb against the side of Hermann's knee, experimentally. He felt like he had accidentally started a game of chicken.

Hermann continued to not shove his hand off. "Yes."

"I..." Why were things suddenly so weird? Newt knew he had caused this, somehow, but it was completely by accident. The thing is, Hermann seemed completely unbothered by the hand on knee thing, like it was beneath his notice, and Newt was the one getting worked up about it. "I missed something really obvious, didn't I."

And then Hermann was brushing his hand off and starting to stand. "I have no idea what nonsense you're talking about." At least he had finally taken a step onto the _this is weird this is weird oh my god what is happening_ bandwagon, because Newt didn't want to be on there alone, thinking that he had missed _a lot_ over the last ten years.

"You said you had the day off."

"Visiting you wasn't the _only_ thing I had planned for today," Hermann said.

"Bring me something actually good to eat, tomorrow," Newt said.

"I'm not--" he broke off and made himself look down at Newt. "I might have a package of biscuits or something around."

"Sorry about making it weird, man," Newt said.

"I am not entirely sure you can help it." He sighed. "The next time you feel inclined to chat about my love life, _don't."_

"Yeah, sure, of course," Newt said. He relaxed. Maybe he hadn't fucked everything up. He was genuinely scared that he was going to do that, and was also pretty sure it was just a matter of time.

Hermann frowned. "You aren't actually ill. Stand up, a minute."

"Why?" Newt asked. He pushed aside his laptop and stood up, curious.

Hermann gave him a brief, one-armed hug. "I will see you tomorrow," he mumbled. He turned to leave, but Newt grabbed him and gave him a real hug.

"Man, I don't know what's going on anymore," Newt said.

"That's clear," Hermann said, awkwardly patting Newt's back.

"Our standard dynamic is shot to hell and I have no idea what I'm doing. What even are we, anymore? Are we friends?"

"That's easy," Hermann said, his voice low. "We're partners, as always. Unfortunately, that title has at least a dozen different meanings, and I'm not sure which it is, either. Never mind. It will resolve itself."

"One way or another, right?" He pressed his face against Hermann's bony shoulder.

"No," Hermann said. "Stop worrying. I am _here._ I will _be_ here."

Newt didn't say anything.

"We will all be thankful when you can leave," Hermann said, sighing.

Newt let him go. He felt at ease again, as he sat down on the uncomfortable slab they called a bed.]

 

_Or:_

 

Newt noticed the nurse, and made the same observation. He watched how Hermann reacted to the guy, but only mentioned that he hated him. He figured he had gotten his wires crossed and maybe it was the kaiju who were into burly male nurses. Or maybe it was a combination of Newt's taste in men and Hermann's taste, and the combination meant that neither of them were actually attracted to him. He needed to read up more about the drift and find out if that was a thing that happened.

"I have no idea how long this Shatterdome will stay open," Hermann admitted. "The Marshal is trying to use our...popularity, at the moment, to grant us funding, but I don't believe anyone sees a purpose in us, anymore."

"They didn't before, either. They continue to be short-sighted, empty-headed dickbags, is anyone surprised?"

"Well, what purpose _do_ we serve, now, Newton?" Hermann asked. "There are no more jaegers. Without some indication that a new Breach will open, the PPDC is just a symbol of fear, or a relic of an age everyone hopes to be done with."

Hermann could get kind of dramatic. "You think the Breach will reopen?" he asked. "I don't see the Precursors giving up all this prime real estate, do you? We couldn't have killed _all_ of them."

"I don't know. If it did reopen, it could be...anywhere, really." He looked down. "We won't be prepared. All of this will be _meaningless_."

"You really believe that? The precursors are terrifying, sure. I'll admit I'd piss my pants if I ever met one in person. The things they're capable of, and what they use those capabilities for--they're vile. But everyone was scared shitless of the kaiju at first, right? We couldn't think of any way to fight them without destroying our planet in the process. It's the same with the new bad guys. We can fight them, if they come back. We just have to understand them better."

"Are you going to study _them_?" Hermann's face twisted with disgust.

"There's only so much I can study about them. I can just record what we both learned, and try to speculate from that. It's not enough. I don't _like_ them, Hermann. I'm actually not sure I've hated anyone or anything more in my life. They have the ability to make something like the kaiju, and then wasted it with what they did with them." He opened up a drawing program on his laptop and tried to sketch out the impression he had gotten of the precursors. "Like it matters. K-science is going to be the first department to go. At least my half."

"They want to know if there will be a new event, so they might keep me on for a while," Hermann said.

"I wonder if one of the cults will buy up this building."

"The city will probably take it over. Where will you go?"

"Maybe I'll take a vacation. You should quit and come with me. They can hire someone else, and we'll write a book. We'll make so much we can fund our own research."

"If they keep me on, I will stay on, Newton."

"Traitor."

"To what? You?" he scoffed. "I would love to take time off, but until someone else can take over my work, I have a responsibility. To the world. To everyone who died."

He wanted to make fun of Hermann for being overly dramatic, but he felt the same way. There should be an outpouring of funding towards their division, so they would be prepared if there was another event in the future. Over-prepared. The Breach could open again, and there should be a team of jaegars ready to go in and collapse it again.

They were only willing to spend money at the last minute, on projects that were appealing but not backed up by any solid science. But Hermann was going to keep working, anyway, and Newt would figure out _something._ He wasn't sure why the two of them bothered. It hurt, thinking about all the people who didn't have to die, who could have been saved if they had been properly funded. Maybe they would have shut the Breach a year ago. If someone had _listened to them._

"Yeah, me too, but who cares?" Newt asked, slamming his laptop shut again. "You would think people would at least be self-serving enough to keep this place running."

"Newton." Hermann leaned forward, in his chair. "We will figure this out."

"Or, we won't." His eyes stung, and he was blinking too much. They were supposed to be heroes, rock stars, even. And, okay, they were probably going to get medals and accolades, and that was amazing and they deserved it. But that meant they should have a platform and people should listen to them. Would they?

"We _will_ ," Hermann insisted. He grabbed Newt's arm and held it, tight.

"Fine, ow, okay. But I'm still taking a vacation, and I'm still taking pictures of myself in a jacuzzi somewhere and sending them to you so you hate yourself for not coming with me. I'll find some stodgy old grandpa to put my arm around and there will be an arrow pointing to it that says 'this could've been you.'"

"Well," he said, amused, "I hope you and the strangers you accost have a very nice time."

\--

They let Newt out of observation after one more day, once their irritation with him overpowered their fear for his health. They sent him away with a "Well, you're probably fine" and a shrug, and he finally got to see how much the Shatterdome had already changed since he was admitted.

Some of his equipment was missing from his side of the lab, and when he accused Hermann, all he got was "I would admit it if I threw any of your things away," and another shrug. Newt had the feeling he was already being phased out.

But not _immediately_ , so he got as much done as he could.

He and Hermann settled back into something close to their old routine. They tried to leave their work at a reasonable time, but usually ended up walking together to the mess hall at some ungodly hour. They stood a little closer together when they walked. If it was very late, Newt would lay back on the bench and put his head on Hermann's lap, threatening to fall asleep right there.

There was a new baseline to normal, was all it was.

"Dude," Newt said, reaching up and patting Hermann's face. "Why do you eat so slow? Let's get out of here."

Hermann grabbed Newt's hand and pulled it away. "You are perfectly capable of leaving on your own."

Newt yawned. "Nah." He would go back to his room and barely sleep at all, just like every other night since the drift. So long as he wasn't actually on his bed, he could pretend he was going to nod off any second.

"I, however, am not. Since I am pinned here by your enormous head. How many kilos of product do you wear?"

"You don't want to go down the road where we start insulting each others' hair, Hermann, believe me. I'm holding back so much every second of the day I have to look at you."

Hermann sipped his tea with one hand, and briskly mussed up Newt's hair with the other.

"Hey! You toddler!" Newt batted his hand away, but didn't move in any other way.

"If you insist on invading my personal space constantly, you need to expect this will happen." He looked down at Newt and put his hand over his mouth to cover his laugh.

"What's so funny, Dr. Gottlieb?" Newt asked.

"Absolutely nothing."

"Completely serious science happening, here." Newt was pretty sure he had never seen Hermann in such a good mood.

Hermann nodded and pushed his tray away. "You can get up now, Dr. Geiszler."

"Finally!" Newt said, sitting up, like Hermann had been doing anything to keep him there.

He walked Hermann back to his room. When they stood outside the door, Newt decided to give it one last shot.

"I'm getting fired soon," Newt said.

Hermann nodded. "Whatever I think of your work, I do not agree with that decision. You were right. This division should be kept running for as long as possible."

Newt clasped Hermann's shoulder. "Exactly, dude. When I go, you should come with me. Any university will take you on, and you can do this math shit anywhere."

"Newton, we've been over this. I will stay for as long as I am allowed to. I haven't changed my mind."

"I know, but--" Newt threw his hand down, again. "--god, never mind. I don't know why I asked again. This was stupid."

"No, it wasn't," he said, taken aback by Newt's reaction. "I just _can't."_

"I know, I get it."

"I'm not sure--"

"I _get it._ I really do, Hermann. Sometimes you just have to bang your head into the brick wall one more time to make sure you can't knock it down that way."

"I'm...sorry? If they just get rid of the whole department, I will come with you?"

"I've just never met someone who needed a vacation more than you, Hermann."  
  
"That's likely." He looked suddenly very tired.

"Never mind. I won't ask again. Go to bed, Hermann."

He nodded, uneasy. "Good night, Newton."

 

_[Or:_

 

They stood outside Hermann's door.

"I wish I could go with you," Hermann admitted, after Newt asked him.

"You're the only one stopping yourself, man," Newt said.

Hermann shook his head. He didn't explain. Newt thought it had something to do with Marshal Pentecost, but his sense of what Hermann had felt for the Marshal was muddled and strange.

"Anyway, it's fine. I get it. I just thought I'd ask one more time."

"Newton, I--" he broke off, hearing some noise down the hall. "...I know you want to go to bed, but would you come in for a minute?"

"You can't tell me out here? No, fine, come on." He waited for Hermann to open the door, tapping his foot, impatient. Once he was in, he immediately went over to the bed and sat down on it, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Are you trying to look stern? You look like a pouting child." Hermann sat down next to him.

"I can just leave, you know."

"No, just a minute." Hermann looked down. He fussed with the cuff of his sleeve. "I wanted to ask you _why._ Are you asking me because of some...lingering attachment from our drift?"

"Because we're partners, right? That's what you said. But you also said this would all resolve itself, so maybe we can conclude you were full of crap."

"There's no reason we can't...continue collaborating after you leave."

"We can stay friends. That's what you're trying to say, Hermann."

"Well, at least one of us is sure what I am trying to say," he muttered.

Newt stared at him, frowning. He took pity on him. "Talking to other human beings is hard, isn't it, Hermann?"

Hermann looked up and glared at him.

"I mean, I'm joking, but it's also really true. C'mere." He waved Hermann over to him.

Hermann continued to glare as he slid closer to Newt on the bed. Newt tried very, very hard not to laugh right in his face. He managed to hold his laughter in until he had his face pressed against Hermann's shoulder.

"Yes, yes, whatever it is, it's amusing, I'm sure," Hermann grumbled. "I was trying to have a serious conversation."

"Gotta get us properly organized, right, Hermann?" he said, without any real malice.

"Well, I know how _I_ feel, but I still have no idea how seriously you are taking any of this."

"Can I sleep here?" Newt said, distracted, and then what Hermann said caught up with him. "Wait, what? You know how I _feel_. I want you to rack up a huge tab on room service with me, take some time off. I don't think I've been subtle about this."

"Not _that,_ " Hermann said, and then what Newt said caught up with him. "Why on _earth_ would you want to sleep in here?"

Newt looked up and Hermann looked down. They almost knocked noses, looking at the same time.

"Why not?" Newt asked.

"For one thing," Hermann said, soft, and still an inch away from Newt's face, "It's barely big enough for a single person. One of us would end up sleeping on the floor."

"I vote you," Newt said.

"Would you _please_ \--" Hermann broke off, and made a frustrated noise.

"Would I please what?"

Hermann closed the space between them, and for a brief moment their lips were touching. Then, he pulled himself back, almost violently, swearing under his breath in German.

Newt's heart was pounding in his chest. "Holy shit." _I know how_ I _feel,_ he had said. "Holy shit," he repeated.

Hermann's face was bright red, and he had a hand up over his mouth, like he was trying to keep them from doing anything else stupid. Newt thought they were both severely overreacting to something they could have played off as an accident. They had fucked up that chance.

"I'm sorry," Hermann said.

Newt stared at him. He needed to say something. He had been on the exact opposite side of this situation a couple times in his life and Hermann was going to avoid him if he screwed this up and that wasn't something he was willing to let happen.

"I'm not accepting that apology," Newt said. "That was weak, dude. For a second, I thought you didn't mean it."

"What? Don't _mock_ me."

"Then get over here and finish what you started." He had a feeling he was still fucking this up, but he was trying, dammit, and that counted for something.

"Oh," he breathed, as he caught on. "I didn't think..."

"That's why they tell us to use our words."

Hermann was like a stone, so Newt re-closed the gap between them. This was possibly the worst decision he had ever made. He decided it was Hermann's fault.

"You can sleep in here, if you like," Hermann said, quiet. "I don't mind."

\--

Newt was going to go back. He knew he was going to go back, eventually. The huge bed in his hotel room was too empty. But there was no better place to mope than where he had a "Do Not Disturb" sign and people brought him food.

Two days after he left, he had sent Hermann a text message telling him where he was staying. Hermann had responded, nearly immediately, telling him to come home, but hadn't shown his face.

Newt had thought about calling his uncle, or anyone, but he knew what they would say. The first words out of their mouths would be "What did you do?" And, okay, he knew he had fucked up in the past but this was _not his fault._ Not entirely.

A full week after he left, he was in bed, watching television, every item he had brought with him scattered all over the room. He watched television, flipping through the channels, not particularly interested in anything he came across. There was a loud knock on the door, and it made Newt laugh, a little. It sounded like Hermann's knock, but he was sure it was just room service.

But he opened the door and Hermann was standing there.

"Newton," Hermann started.

Newt closed the door in his face. He took a few deep breaths and opened it again. "Hermann," he said, ice cold.

Hermann was gripping the head of his cane so tightly his knuckles were white, and his hands were shaking. "Newton. May I come in?"

"Do we have to do this?" Newt asked. "God, fine, come in, sure." He waved his hand and stepped back.

Hermann walked in and Newt closed the door. He had no idea how to take this visit, five days after he told Hermann where he was. "I was going to come back," he said, defensive. "Just not yet."

Hermann nodded. He sat down in the chair next to the television, the one with the weird diamond pattern. He started to say something. He closed his mouth and swallowed, clearly anxious.

Newt rolled his eyes. "There's food coming. I can probably still add to the order, if you want something."

Hermann shook his head. "No. I'm fine. I didn't think you were coming back."

"I'd at least send you a message or something if I was breaking up with you," Newt said. "This is your fault, you know. I didn't cause this, I was just the first one to actually do something."

"I know," Hermann said.

"Do you really," Newt said.

There was another knock on the door. Newt left Hermann for a minute and let them bring the tray in. He handed Hermann a bagel and Hermann mumbled something and set it on the table next to himself. Once the door closed and they were alone again, he said, not looking up, "Newton, I have been thinking."

Something in Newt went cold. "Oh, I know what _that_ means."

Hermann looked confused, for a second. "Do you?"

"Yeah. I just have all my shit over at the house, and it's going to be a pain in the ass to move it all again, but I'm used to moving at this point. It's not a big deal."

"Why are we--" He looked up, abrupt, "No! That's not what I'm doing! That's not what I mean, at all."

Newt sat down on the end of his bed, heavily. "Okay, sure."

Hermann looked back down. "Newton, I don't...think we can go on like this."

"You just said you weren't breaking up with me, you lying piece of shit!"

"I am not!"

"Then stop saying shit that sounds like a lead-up to dumping me! How are you so bad at this?" Newt got up again and walked over. He grabbed the bagel he had given Hermann and stomped back over to the bed. He tore off a chunk of it and stuffed it into his mouth. Hermann didn't want it, and he didn't deserve it.

Hermann rubbed his head. "I don't know. I just am. My past relationships have been with people who were better at it then I am."

"Honestly, this is the longest relationship I've ever had," Newt said. He yanked free another hunk of bagel. "I can't make up for how much you suck at it."

"And vice versa, yes." He sighed. "Newton, the last week, I have been...thinking back on our...time together. This happens. Every few months, we have a fight that makes us wonder if it will actually last, and then we calm down. I could plot it on a chart," he said, bitter.

"Yeah, that sounds like something you would do. I don't know why you _aren't_ here to dump me, considering you already have it planned out how it's going to end."

"Because," his voice hitched, "I don't _want_ it to." He squeezed his eyes shut. "But if things stay the way they are...I'm not sure how it can last."

Newt frowned. "Okay, first? Come over here and sit next to me."

Hermann nodded, once, and settled down on the bed next to Newt. He made sure to sit far enough that they weren't actually touching, which defeated the purpose as far as Newt was concerned.

Newt slid over until their legs were touching. "Okay, so we're both bad at this," he said. "It's not like we can't learn. People do this all the time, right? We aren't idiots. I mean, if you actually want it to work. It's hard to believe that when you have a predictive model telling you when we're going to get fed up and end it."

"I have no such thing," Hermann said. "You refuse to believe me, but I do _not_."

"I don't believe you, because you're lying out your ass here, Hermann. Just because you haven't written it down--I mean, I know you, man."

"Uncomfortably well," he said.

Newt put his arm around Hermann's waist. "If you aren't here to break up with me, you can calm down a little. Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't be worked up, but like, we have some time before you've predicted our like, relationship apocalypse. I bet it will be like a double event with me leaving my shoes in the middle of the floor and you throwing out my favorite pair of pants or something because it has one hole in them."

This was the wrong thing to say. "I can't have you leaving things in the middle of the floor! I deal with it everywhere else, but not in my own home, for god's sake."

For a second, Newt was pissed. He almost pulled away, but then what Hermann was actually trying to say to him sunk in. "Oh. Wow. Hey, it turns out I'm kind of an asshole. Did you ever think maybe you could hold off on insulting me for two seconds and actually explain what the problem was?"

"It's embarrassing," he admitted. "And it is not a real difficulty. Obviously I can manage."

"Yeah, okay, but you don't want to have to like when you're getting up in the middle of the night to take a piss in your own house. I get it."

"I shouldn't have said some of the things I did," Hermann said.

"Yeah," Newt said. "And I know you hate my stuff, but you can't just mess with it."

"I will replace the items, of course."

"That's nice, but some of them I just kept because they were a gift from like my uncle, or whoever."

"Right. Sentimental value."

"Something like that."

"I'm sorry. I don't actually know how I can make up for it, then."

Newt shrugged. "It's just stuff, really. Like, low-priced capitalist garbage I attached some meaning to. I'll get over it."

Hermann looked at him. "All right."

Newt bumped foreheads with him. "Maybe next time I won't have a tantrum and run off because you broke my toys. That might be something I could try doing."

"Please," Hermann said, sounding exhausted. He shifted, dropping his head to Newt's shoulder. He pressed his face against Newt's neck. His breathing was shallow.

"I'm paid through until tomorrow," Newt said. "I don't feel like packing my shit back up yet, so you should stay. You should stay here with me."

"I don't have..." he mumbled, "...well, it will be fine just for one night." They were quiet, for a minute. "Newton, I know you think I am...constantly predicting the end of this. I...maybe I am. But I don't want it to end." He pulled back and sat up straight, rolling his shoulders. "That's why we need to stop being so terrible at this. I can't imagine us never arguing, but we could occasionally actually listen to what the other man is saying."

Newt considered him. "Man, I think we can actually do this," he said, looking up at him. He grabbed for Hermann's hand and squeezed it.

"I'm sure of it," Hermann said. "We _can_." He drew Newt's hand up and kissed it, more like pecked it three or four times, not entirely sure what he was doing.

Newt grinned and leaned in, kissing him.

Hermann relaxed for a second and then pulled back. "No, don't you see? I am _sure._ One hundred percent sure that we can make it work."

"Is it physically painful for you to use math to lie?" Newt asked, laughing a little. "I mean, I appreciate what you're saying, here, Hermann, but this isn't actually something you can accurately predict."

"I am not _lying_ ," Hermann said. "Newton, I am _sure_ ." He grasped Newt's hand, almost too tight. "I love you. We will figure out how to _make it work."_

"Oh god," Newt said. "Yes, definitely we will. God." There were a thousand things he wanted to do right that second. He felt like he'd just agreed to jump off a cliff without a parachute, except he felt kind of good about it. Terrified, sure, obviously.

Hermann cleared his throat and reined himself in. He patted Newt's hand, gently, and set it down.

"Love you too, babe," Newt said.

\--

Newt wasn't really sleeping. He thought there was a chance he _might,_ and the bed and Hermann were warm enough to keep him from going back to work.

Moving again had exacerbated his insomnia. He missed his real bed and the ludicrously expensive therapeutic mattress they had split costs on.

He was still thinking about their bed when the room lit up. He snapped immediately into a panic response. Was it an alarm? Had every piece of technology Hermann owned turned itself on, simultaneously? He opened his mouth to cry out, but sound died in his throat as he actually got a look at the source of the light.

It was too bright, and he wasn't wearing his glasses, but the color, and the _shape..._

He turned to tell Hermann to wake the hell up and take a look at the breach that had popped up in their bedroom when something grabbed onto him and wouldn't let go. Everything seemed to freeze, and his mind went blank.

His butt hit the hard ground and he finally managed a sound.

"Ow, shit, what the hell?"

He opened his eyes and he was wearing his glasses. And he was outside.

Hermann was hurrying over to him, from one of the facility's cars, parked in the distance. They were in the middle of nowhere, from what he could tell through the specks in his vision.

"Newton, are you all right?" Hermann asked.

"The breach--they _do_ something. They did something. How did I get here? How did _you_ get here?"

"How did we _get_ here?" Hermann looked genuinely distressed by the question. "Can you stand? We are going back, and someone with a medical degree is looking at you."

"I wasn't here," Newt said. "We were in bed."

"That would have been a better idea," Hermann said. He stood by, shifting uncomfortably, while Newt got himself up off the ground.

"First hypothesis--getting zapped messed up my memory, somehow."

"If you don't remember the drive here," Hermann said, doubtful.

Newt didn't even remember owning the shirt he had on. "What's the time?"

Hermann told him.

"And the date?"

Even more concerned, Hermann told him.

His first guess got slam dunked in the garbage, a few seconds after he made it.

He kept guessing, but when he finally did figure out what had happened, it would be a very long time before anyone believed him. ]


	6. Chapter 6

"All right, first human trial run," Newt said, into his recorder. He stated the date and time.

Hermann was driving. They were alone in the car, but there was a whole caravan after them. "Are you going to insist on talking into that the entire drive?"

Newt glared at him. "This is a historical moment, Hermann. It's huge. I need to record my observations so they can replay them on the news in a few hours." He had wanted his/alter-Newt's family to see him, and to say goodbye, but the timing on this had been too random for him to invite them.

"If this works, you won't have a chance to enjoy the attention."

"I'll get to enjoy it back in my own reality, and know that I'm basically a rock star in two different planes of existence. And there's no one else who can say that."

"They'll need a weighbridge to measure your ego," Hermann said.

"And deservedly so," Newt said. "C'mon, this is going to be so cool, if it works. You get to stay here and help all those people who ended up here, plus you get to see what's-his-name again."

Hermann smiled a little. "Well, I suppose you might deserve  _some_ recognition."

"You too, man," he said. "And take a real vacation, seriously."

"Is this you saying goodbye?" Hermann asked.

Newt raised an eyebrow and clicked off the recorder. "I guess so, yes." If it didn't end up working, he didn't want to have to listen to this later when he was compiling his notes on why it failed.

"I can't say it hasn't been an interesting experience, meeting you," Hermann said.

"Interesting enough to give you years of material for therapy, right?" Newt said. "Same here. I'm actually thrilled that I got to figure out what was going on, and now I get to be a huge hero in more than one universe. It turns out I'm a complete badass, which everyone already had been clued into thanks to the kaiju, but I think a lot of people needed a reminder."

"Scores of men and women will be throwing their unmentionables at you, I am sure," Hermann said, rolling his eyes.

"Don't cheapen this, Hermann. But, yeah. Even Hermann-Prime is going to have to admit I'm a rock star."

"Oh, I doubt he will," he said, amused.

"What about the underwear throwing, think he'll be down for that?" Newton asked, half-kidding.

" _Newton_ ." He made a smooth, too-fast turn, and Newt was briefly pressed against the door wishing he had taken a different car. "Never, ever. I would not even recognize the version of me that would engage in that behavior."

"Probably the universe where my music career took off."

"That one would be so separate from ours, by time and chance, it's true that I could be a completely different person. Maybe I became a pilot," he said, lightly.

Newt wondered if a world where Hermann became a pilot (aiming to be an astronaut, possibly) instead of a math nerd would actually still exist. Things would be so different, how could he guess?

"A pilot and the president of my fan club," Newt said.

"Why not make me the founder, in your little fantasy?"

"No, that's one of the kids who treated me like shit when I was in school, obviously, Hermann. It's like you've never fantasized about being a rock star before."

Hermann looked amused, for a second. "Well, fine. But if I was president, I would wait until I met you in person and just have you sign them."

"And wear them every day."

"Special occasions only, Newton."

"Oh, right, of course. What was I thinking?"

"It  _is_ a mystery." He sighed. "On some disturbed level, I suppose I will miss having you around."

"You'll forget about me two seconds after that other guy shows up," Newt said. He held up his hands. "I'm not saying I blame you, or that I care, but that's how it is, man."

"I will not," Hermann said. "I won't allow you to decide how I will feel."

"Okay fine, you'll be devastated. 'Why did I ever have to get back the man I married? Why couldn't it have just been me and the guy I refused to consider, just awkwardly being platonic lab partners, forever?'"

"Just because I want him back doesn't mean--" he broke off, frowning. "Oh, never  _mind_ ."

"Sorry, man. You're actually making an effort to say goodbye like a genuine human being, and I'm screwing it up for you. I actually  _will_ miss you, and everything's going to be weird between me and my Hermann for a while. Like we had a pretty good thing going, and now I don't have any idea what I want."

"It's fine. And I'm sure things will return to normal between you two soon enough," he said, a little awkward in his attempt at reassurance.

"Depending on how this resolves in my head, I don't know if that's better or worse than it being weird. But, never mind. That's my own reality, and my business there. Nothing to do with you."

Hermann nodded. "I am still mostly positive it will be fine."

"Me and Hermann will be fine, you and what's his face will be just great, like I'm positive, and you and me will get praise and attention heaped on us in our respective universes for solving this huge puzzle and saving people. We'll both write books but mine will be actually interesting to read, so I'll make enough to live off for the rest of my life."

"Yes, all of that will happen," Hermann said. He sighed. "Though, honestly? You are not the only one...nervously anticipating the reunion. Things might have changed. It's been months. There were times when I wasn't sure we could fix this, and that had to have been true for him, as well. I would understand if he made mistakes, while he was trapped in your reality, but..."

"Mistakes? God, if Hermann slept with an alternate version of me, that would make everything even weirder between us than I was anticipating. He didn't do that. Neither of them did that. Even if he had a moment of weakness, my Hermann would just be like 'aren't you supposed to be  _married,_ Dr. Geiszler?' and it would be like cold water thrown on his junk. Everything's fine."

"You're sure?" Hermann seemed to relax.

"100%? No."

He winced.

"But mostly, yeah. Even if he did fuck up, though, I mean you have to admit the circumstances are weird compared to a normal infidelity. I don't want to think that me coming here messed up your marriage, somehow."

"I would understand, like I said," Hermann said.

"But you're saying you might not be able to get over it."

"I'm not sure. I don't want to have to.  _I_ didn't do anything, even when you made that difficult."

"Yeah, but. Forgive him anyway?"

"I might."

"So I did make it difficult?" Newt asked. "That's not just you trying to make me feel better?"

"Of course I was tempted," Hermann said. "But sometimes I'm tempted to drive into a tree. It's perfectly natural to have a brief dangerous impulse as you look over the edge of a cliff."

"Can I take over driving?"

"No."

"Well, if I do get back, I'm glad you didn't fling yourself off that cliff, Hermann. If I don't, ever, then you should change your mind."

"Never."

There was going to be no budging on that point. Newt tried something a little different. "What if, like, something goes wrong and I get stuck here but he comes back, too?"

"That's very unlikely."

"Yeah, but think about it. I want you to think about that a lot, Hermann, what that would be like."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Just, consider it."

Hermann started to turn red. "I refuse to spend even a second thinking about anything...of that nature." His voice turned into a mumble, at the end.

"You're totally thinking about it," Newt said, grinning.

"You're worse than he is," Hermann muttered.

"Now you're just sweet talking me, Hermann." He nudged Hermann with his elbow, amused with himself.

"Yes, heaven forbid you not strive to make me uncomfortable in your last ten minutes in this plane of existence," Hermann said. "Thank you, Dr. Geiszler, for making your last few minutes here identical to the months before it."

"You're welcome. I couldn't have done it without you doing the same for me, first, I mean that."

It wasn't until they were parked walking distance from a glaringly bright rift that Newt realized they'd forgotten to actually do the "goodbye" part of saying goodbye.

Hermann was opened the door, but Newt grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"Just a sec, Hermann. We did the part where we didn't believe we'd miss each other, but we forgot the last step. Hug?"

"Oh. Right." Hermann shifted so he could face him, and Newt pulled him into a hug. He pressed his face against Hermann's shoulder and held him, tight, tighter than he meant to.

Hermann twitched, but didn't pull back. He smiled and put his arms around Newt and hugged him back. "Goodbye, Newton. I really will miss your..." he cleared his throat, "...slightly different brand of Newtonian charm."

"Figure out how to send information through, and send me an email sometime," Newt said, muffled.

Hermann pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "It sounds difficult and like a waste of resources, but I can probably find a likely-sounding excuse."

"Cross-universe scientific collaboration, maybe. What if someone's figured out how to properly neutralize kaiju blue on a mass scale? We could totally just ask and not have to waste time on it ourselves."

"And I could also send you an email," he said, amused.

"Tell me how things worked out, over here, with that lucky asshole."

"They will be  _fine_ ," Hermann said.

Newt sniffed, loudly, and pulled back. He lifted his glasses to wipe his eyes. He probably shouldn't be this broken up about it, but Hermann was just going to have to deal with it.

"And I will have this disgusting damp patch on my coat to remember you by; isn't that wonderful," Hermann said.

"Bye, Hermann, you complete asshole. Take care of yourself, I really mean that."

"I will. You too."

Newt nodded and got out of the car. The other cars were arriving, and the people in them started setting up the equipment. He brushed off his coat and hoped that alter-Newt appreciated the note he'd left for him on his boxers. He'd left a longer note on the laptop, but he was sure he would find the underwear note in a few hours and not at some point in the future like the letter.

Hermann climbed out of the car and started supervising, while Newt carefully stayed a safe distance back from the breach. There was no point getting sucked in  _now._ A couple guards hovered just out of range of the rift, keeping watch for anyone trying to pull a Tso.

Actual Dr. Tso was there, nervously observing everyone. He kept looking at Newt, trying to will him not to be horrifically vaporized by the experiment. He needed it to work, too, along with everyone else who was living in the wrong reality.

Newt also didn't want to be vaporized, but he was just trying not to think about that possibility. Cutting edge science and self-experimentation always came at significant risk.

Hermann had to check over everything to make sure it was set up properly, but it was ready before Newt had even started to absorb that he was leaving. He kept trying to find the woman carrying a camera around, making sure she got a good shot of him before he went through.

He recorded some final observations, switched off the recorder, and set it on Hermann's car. He didn't want to risk breach-zapping fucking up his last notes.  _Especially_ if something went wrong.

"Everybody, back!" someone yelled. Newt put on his light-protection goggles and walked back with everyone else behind the cars.

They switched on the machine. Hermann walked next to him and they watched the breach expand, twist and reshape itself. He put his hand on Newt's shoulder. Newt slipped his arm around Hermann's waist, giving him a quick side hug. It was too loud for either of them to say anything and expect to be heard.

Hermann put his hand on the small of Newt's back and gently pushed.

Newt stepped forward, grinning. The camera was on him, now, so he imitated a rock star and waved devil horns at it, striding towards the breach, giving off the appearance of complete confidence. He'd gotten dressed up for this.

Once he passed the point of no return, he spun around and took a look at the crowd. He could barely see Hermann. He waved at the whole group and shouted "See you later!" even though no one could actually hear him over the noise of the machine winding down.

A tendril of light wrapped itself around his wrist and he thought  _Oh good, I'm not going to look like an asshole standing here waving at everyone for ten minutes while nothing happens._

There was a noise like static in his ears and everything went white. He felt a brief stab of panic  _this could kill me I could be dying right now_ and his mind went blank.

\--

When he came back to himself, his knees and hands were pressed against a hard floor. He could tell he wasn't wearing the safety goggles anymore and his glasses had slipped down his nose.

"Newton, are you...?" Hermann was here, too, apparently.

Newt fixed his glasses and looked up, squinting at Hermann's shadow hovering over him. He was leaning heavily on his cane, his free hand covering his mouth. Newt could tell immediately that it wasn't the same Hermann he had just left behind, from how he was dressed. But was it the  _right_ one?

"...are you all right?" he finished.

Newt got up, looked down at himself, and brushed himself off. "No damage done, as far as I can tell." He glanced around. It was just him and Hermann, alone in a hallway. They were pretty close to the main lab, and probably either been going or coming from there. "So the first half of the test was a success. You're the only one here, dude, so I'm going to need a high five."

"A test? Put your hand down, Newton." He let his own hand drop to his side.

"You seem to know what's going on, so you must come from  _a_ universe where I left. I need confirmation that this is my, uh, point of origin, I think is the term we decided on."

"Yes." Hermann still looked tense. He was breathing like he had just finished running a marathon.

"Sorry for freaking you out, man. There was literally no way to send a heads up."

"Never mind," Hermann said, rubbing his head. He looked suddenly exhausted. "It was  _alarming_ , of course, but it's more important that we figure out if you returned to the correct place."

"Yeah! I'm glad we're on the same page here. Okay, were you there when I got sucked in the first time?"

"Yes. You insisted on testing out some blasted machine on the breach."

"So we're at least in the same ballpark." He looked Hermann over. "Are we married?"

"No!"

"Okay, good, that's another point. Was the Newt you got in exchange for me, was he married to his version of you?"

"Yes," he admitted. "That was uncomfortable."

"Holy shit,  _yes,_ it really was, wasn't it? I'm so glad there's someone else who gets how weird that was. I'm going to say this is the right place, but leave it open to me changing my mind when it turns out everyone has kaiju tails or listens exclusively to frat rock."

"I suspect he is very angry right now that you solved the problem before he did," Hermann said.

"Oh, man, I bet he's  _pissed."_ He was probably actually embarrassing the hell out of Bizarro-Hermann in front of the camera, but Newt was going to not think about that. "I am the top of the Newt food chain, it's obvious now. The rest of them can kiss my ass!"

"I doubt you did most of the work," Hermann said.

"I took the risk, though. There was a moment when I was like 'I might be about to die, right now' and maybe Hermann and fifty other people did  _most_ of the actual research, but I'm the one who put my ass on the line. We need to get a news crew here because I'm getting praised for this."

"I'm sure they will get involved, regardless," Hermann said, tired. "You should let a doctor examine you, to make sure repeatedly traveling through a rift in space-time has not, for instance, irradiated you."

"For someone who hates doctors, you sure keep inflicting them on me," Newt groused. "Yeah, fine." He actually wanted them to run various tests on him, for his own purposes, but he was still going to complain.

"I don't hate--well, I mean, regardless of how I feel about them, they serve a purpose." He turned away, and Newt noted he didn't appear to have a weird tail or anything like that.

The door to the lab burst open. "Dr. Gottlieb!" Newt recognized, almost, the three people running towards them.

"What is it?  _Calm down_ ."

"We registered a breach opening in the building!"

"No shit," Newt said. "Really? Wow."

"We  _know_ ," Hermann said. "Please excuse him. He is overly excited because he is going to be on television."

\--

"You can admit that you missed me," Newt said. He was in scrubs, legs swinging over the edge of the hospital bed.

"Your copy was here the entire time you were not," Hermann said. "What on earth was I supposed to miss?"

"My unique charm," Newt said.

"Fine." Hermann looked up at the ceiling, a full head eye-roll. "Welcome back, Newton."

The doctor was very quick to confirm that Newt wasn't the same Newt who had been the last one to visit him. Before Newt left to have a battery of tests run on him, he tried to convince Hermann to go into his room and grab him a better set of clothes. He didn't want to be interviewed in a hospital gown.

Hermann refused, but promised to keep the hordes of media away before Newt was ready to speak with them. When Newt came back from the tests, Hermann was gone. He left in the clothes he had worn coming in. The people he passed in the hallways welcomed him back and he got a few handshakes and high fives out of them.

The next two weeks were packed full of activity, and Newt really felt like a rock star telling everyone what he had experienced in the other universe. When he wasn't doing interviews, or talking to people generally, he was writing down the information other-Hermann had him carefully memorize before he crossed over. They needed to send everyone else back, too.

Once things started to die down, he was able to dedicate all his time to rebuilding the machine he and Bizarro-world Hermann had helped put together. He made sure the television was on in the lab, so he could see himself every time he was on the news.

"You are making me miss your terrible music," Hermann groused.

"Man, but look at me. I'm improving the cause of science, up there! Kids are going to want to become biologists because of me!"

"I have already seen the same two minutes a hundred times, Newton," Hermann said. "It is the same overly-simplified tripe, and your tie is still uneven."

"It looks hot like that."

Hermann pinched the bridge of his nose. "You wore it like that on purpose. Of course you did. That is worse than being a slob." His own collar was uneven, but he was oblivious. He started closing up his holo projector. It was getting late, and they were trying to work normal hours.

"Oh, hey, before you leave, I have a question." Newt shut off the television and walked over to Hermann.

"You're going to ask regardless, so get on with it."

"I was looking through the logs for this project, and you didn't start until way after me and the other Hermann were already way into our work. That explains why you were so far behind us, but I'm curious why it took so long to get started."

"Oh." He considered. "Newton, how long did it take for you to realize what happened to you?"

"Like, months, in detail, but it took a few minutes to get the gist of it," Newt said.

"How long was it until, um, my 'twin' understood what happened to you?" Hermann always stumbled over what to call his alternate reality self.

"Like, about the same time? It happened really fast."

"That's the difference." He turned away, starting to leave, and Newt followed him. "How did he know?"

"He noticed my tattoo was different."

"Your  _tattoo_ was  _different_ ?" Hermann stopped, rigid, and Newt almost rammed into him.

"Not, like, in any immediately obvious way? But you have kind of pretty good memory for detail and I don't usually sleep with a shirt on unless it's freezing."

" _Bloody hell,_ the  _tattoo was different_ ," Hermann hissed, under his breath. "Do you have any idea how long we spent trying to find some  _concrete difference_ between your alternate and you? And the--" he stopped himself, before he said another bad word. "--the offensive pictures you've had drawn on yourself were--" he shook his head.

"Yeah, it's kind of stupid that no one noticed, I guess. I mean, at least he should've, from pictures of me or something."

"There was a difference in some scars. That was all we found." He swore again, in German this time.

"So...no one believed him? At all?" Newt said, a little worried. "For how long?"

"A month and a half."

"Shit! Everyone thought I was completely nuts for over a month? That poor asshole."

"He stopped making the claim after no one believed him, but he gathered evidence and presented it to me, and I wasn't able to deny some of it. We just assumed that being electrocuted by an entity we did not entirely understand had caused some...traumatic brain injury, something like that."

"I'm getting really tired of people dismissing everything I say because I'm crazy," Newt said. "Like, at this point, no matter what fantastic BS I come out with, you had better go along with it, Hermann. Really." He got sick thinking about what that would have been like, if alternate Hermann hadn't believed him, immediately.

Hermann sighed. "I won't promise to go along with it." He put his hand on Newt's shoulder. "But I will try to believe you, no matter how...nonsensical it sounds." He muttered, under this breath, "You had better not take advantage of this."

"I am going to constantly take advantage of this, dude," Newt said.

"He didn't even realize as fast as you did, what had happened," Hermann said. "His first thought was that the incident blanked out his memory which was why he didn't remember driving out with me."

"See? That was a reasonable guess. You have no reason to suspect everything I say."

They walked together, Hermann telling him about the moments immediately after Newt left.

"Did he realize you weren't together before he tried something?" Newt asked.

The tips of Hermann's ears were tinged red. "He said some things I thought were odd, but.."

"You were like, he's lost it completely, get him to a doctor?"

"He didn't  _try_ anything." Now he was full-on blushing. "I don't want to discuss this."

"When you word it like that, it sounds like he succeeded. Like, he didn't just  _try."_

"He didn't  _succeed_ either. Stop  _teasing_ me, you child."

"It's fun, though," Newt said. "Okay, fine. I guess I don't really want you prodding at  _that_ particular landmine, either."

Hermann stopped walking and stared at him. "...Newton. Did  _he_ try anything?"

"We really need to start calling people by their names or nicknames or  _something_ , because I'm getting lost."

"I'm not referring to him by my name," Hermann said, scoffing.

"Oh,  _that_ him. No," he said. He laughed. "He was a complete gentleman. Like, I would just make a joke, and he'd be like 'oh, but that would be  _cheating.'_ He had no sense of humor about that at all." He was altering the story a little. Hermann didn't need to know he had genuinely come on to his virtual duplicate.

What if Hermann was lying, too? He gave him a suspicious once-over.

"That is a relief," Hermann said.

Newt walked Hermann to his door. "Hey, man?"

"What is it?"

"You're being completely upfront about this, right? You aren't leaving out a few details?"

He expected Hermann to snap at him, maybe bring up the fact that Hermann had just promised to believe whatever Newt said. Maybe there would be a little name-calling.

Hermann looked taken aback, and started to turn red again. "I wouldn't lie."

"Hermann,  _you are full of shit,_ oh my god! What happened? You have to tell me!" He jabbed his index finger into Hermann's sweatervest. "This sort of concerns me."

"Nothing happened!" He said, softer, "Nothing much, really."

Newt shouldn't ask, but  _he had to know_ . "I don't know what that means. Like what is your scale for these things? I know guys who would consider a blowjob 'nothing much' because it's not a six-man orgy."

"You don't know anyone like that."

"I totally do."

"You know people who pretended to be like that,  _maybe."_

"Stop avoiding my point! Come on, man, I have to know. This was like technically me, in a lot of ways. It's my business."

"It  _isn't_ ."

"Look, I lied, too."

Hermann raised his eyebrows. He started to say something and three people in uniform came down the hall. His mouth snapped shut and neither of them said a word until they were alone again. "We aren't talking about this where people can overhear us," Hermann decided. He opened his door and pulled Newt into the room after him.

Newt shut the door behind him. "It wasn't a huge lie, or anything. Don't freak out."

"I'm not--" he broke off and visibly calmed himself, closing his eyes. "Newton. What did you  _do_ ?"

"Why do you assume it was me?"

"You assumed it was  _you_ who tried something with  _me,"_ Hermann pointed out.

"He kissed me!" Newt said. "Once, on the top of the head, when we were saying goodbye."

Hermann relaxed. "That hardly even counts. He also kissed me goodbye. When the breach opened up, by us, he reacted surprisingly quickly. He yelled goodbye and told me to have a nice life, something like that."

"And then laid one on you. Yeah, that sounds like something I'd do."

"Honestly, once I realized what happened, I was annoyed. The breach was already grabbing onto him, and he touches me? He could not have known that was  _safe_ . But," he shrugged, "it's no matter. Nothing went wrong."

"See, we're talking it out, and it's not so bad," Newt said. Hermann seemed to be relaxing.

"He kissed me one other time. If we are being completely honest with one another. He was drunk, and apologized."

That also sounded like something Newt would do. "If we're being  _completely_ honest...I might have been completely genuine, not like joking at all, when I asked him, well, basically. To consider me. If we weren't ever able to fix things and send me home. I've never been rejected so fast in my life," he said, his laugh pitched too high.

Hermann mostly looked confused. "I see?"

"I kind of felt sorry for him? But he was just 'even if you are here forever, I'd never touch you.'" he said, doing his best impression of Hermann.

"That...doesn't sound like what I would say."

"It was something like that,  _I_ don't know. He ripped that bandaid straight off. 'It will never happen, I promise,'" he said, doing an even better Hermann impression.

Worried, Hermann said, "Well, it was for the best. You were able to come back, in the end."

"Yeah. You can see why I wasn't going to tell you, though. It's embarrassing." He scratched the back of his head.

"And...is that why you have been avoiding me?"

"Avoiding you? I'm like, right here, Hermann," he said, annoyed. "We spent the entire day working in the same room."

"I didn't mean  _that_ way," Hermann said. "Never mind."

Newt stared at him. "I have literally no idea what you mean, dude. Use your words."

"I mean--" his hand clenched in frustration "--I mean, since our  _drift_ you have treated me differently, and since you returned--" he shrugged. "It's different, again."

"Don't strain something trying to talk about your feelings, dude." Newt reached out and put his hand on Hermann's arm.

Hermann twitched. "That's what I mean."

"No, see, I still don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about. I feel like I need to drag out the PONs to understand what this is."

" _This,"_ he said, shaking his arm. Newt looked at his hand, on Hermann's arm, baffled. "You were more like this, before you left."

"I mean, if you're talking about my lack of physical boundaries, like, I am literally touching you right now, dude. Aaaaand now it's weird," he said, pulling his hand away. His eyes flicked to Hermann's face. "You actually missed me?"

Hermann's face was pinched with repressed emotion. He spoke in short, painful bursts. "Of course I did. He was like you just enough to remind me constantly that I did."

"Yeah, it's like we kept accidentally sticking each other with pins," Newt said. "For months, without even trying." He felt something start to untwist, in the pit of his stomach. "Aw, c'mere, dude." He held open his arms, and Hermann shuffled over and let himself be hugged. "I knew you loved these."

"I wished I didn't," he mumbled. "I wished I could be rid of you. I am better off with you here, but it is easier without you."

"Yeah." He hugged him a little tighter. "Can I sleep here, tonight?"

"What? Why on earth would you want to do that?" Hermann asked. He sounded more tired than irritated.

"I don't know. I just kind of do?"

"It's a little too much," he said. "At the moment."

Newt made note of the last part. "Yeah, no, I get it."

Hermann drew back, but not away. He fixed Newt's collar and brushed some imaginary dirt off his face.

"Yeah,  _I'm_ the mess here," Newt said. He was pretty sure Hermann was wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday.

"Go to bed. Your  _own_ bed," Hermann said, still determined to pretend that Newt was the only one who could use someone to take care of him. He fiddled with Newt's collar again, seeming to be considering something. Whatever it was, he decided against it. He pushed Newt at the door.

"See you later, Hermann. I mean that kind of generally, like, I'm pretty sure you're going to be dealing with me for the rest of your life."

Hermann took in a sharp intake of breath. "Oh. Well, I will bear it, somehow."

"Because you love me," Newt said, sure.

"Yes, fine." He looked away, for a second. "Just go away, Newton."

"Pushing my luck again?" Newt asked, grinning.

" _Go away_ ."

"Night, Hermann."

"Good night."

 


	7. Chapter 7

_Months earlier:_

"I'm sorry." Hermann sat at his desk, hands tightly clasped in his lap. " _Whoever_ you are. But I don't think it's shocking that I did not immediately believe your story."

"Like, what was even the point of that apology?" Newt asked. "It's not like you think you did anything wrong. Let's just move on." He missed his own Hermann  _so_ much. Being around this one was like slowly suffocating.

"Yes. If it was possible for you to get here, then it's likely there is a way to send you back."

"Just point me to the closest breach, and I'll be gone," Newt said.

"And give us another stranger to deal with," Hermann said, rubbing his head. "Most of the time, nothing happens, anyway. I do wonder why. What triggers it to open?"

Newt shrugged. "What was I--he, I mean, I can say that now--at the breach to do? Something with the test opened it, probably, I don't know."

"I don't see how it could have, but he did say something about 'warming it up' when he was in the car, so it must have been on."

"There you go. A starting point. I want to go home." He crossed his arms over his chest. " _My_ Hermann would have believed me right away."

"You sound like a pouting child," Hermann snapped. He winced, when he remembered again that this was not  _his_ Newton he was snapping at. "He must be very different than I am." He said, gentle.

"No, not really. We just  _trust_ each other." Okay, he was still really pissed off, it turned out. He needed to concentrate on getting home, except all that built up anger wanted to come out.

" _Fine_ . I am going to try and dig up the...junk machine out of storage. Stay here and comfort yourself thinking how much better your  _version of me_ was, while I get actual work done."

"That's right, just go! Because you don't have an argument, because you fucked up!"

"Fine!" Herman started to leave. They were far from the only people in the room, and everyone else was suddenly very busy with their work.

"Fine!" Newt shouted back. "I hate you, you stuck up piece of shit!" He regretted it, a second those words were out of his mouth, but he wasn't going to take them back. He was so angry, he thought he might throw up, and it would all just be the bile he had been repressing over the last month.

Hermann didn't respond. He was storming out the door.

Newt turned to the closest person. "Who are  _you_ looking at?" he asked, high pitched.

They hadn't been looking at him, in the first place. They drew away.

"You thought I was nuts, right? Well, fuck you! Every one of you!"

\--

"Do you know how I knew right away that I wasn't home?" Newt asked, a few days later. He was carefully disassembling the machine his alternate built.

Hermann was at his own computer, looking over new data from one of the rifts. "You didn't know right away. You were the one who suggested it was your memory."

"Close to right away, then, you overly-literal dick. It was you. You were treating me wrong, like closer to what we were like before our drift." He shone a light into the hole he had just made in the outer casing. "I thought you were just upset."

"Well, I  _was_ upset," Hermann said. "Apparently not adequately, but I was."

"And then it was a hundred other things. Like, why don't we have a movie night, here? People had completely different haircuts. Like,  _longer_ hair, somehow. And then I'm sent back to my room and someone else lives there? I have to be directed to my own bedroom. And I tell you about it, and again, you're weird."

"You kept trying to..." Hermann frowned and shook his head. That was that conversation that had made him decide to send Newt back to the doctor.

"Hermann,  _we were married_ ."

"That isn't  _funny_ , Newton," Hermann said, pounding on the keys as he typed.

Newt considered that, for a second. "No, it's hilarious! Because it's completely true."

Hermann looked down at his keyboard, subdued. "I suppose that would explain some of your behavior." Newton had always been a tactile person, but this Newton's behavior had been overwhelming.

"No shit it does! We had rings and wedding pictures and we lived in the same house before we had to move out to this hellhole."

"What about when you were fired?" Hermann asked. "When he was--oh, god, I don't know. You were fired from the PPDC as well, I assume?"

"Yeah. I had to live in this rat infested apartment in Hong Kong until you moved somewhere there hadn't just been a kaiju attack." A lot of buildings had been knocked down, but there were still rooms since even more people had been killed or fled the city. Just, no one was maintaining anything.

"Ah," Hermann breathed. "So you stayed."

"That fascist would have been okay with me bunking with you or even keeping my room, but our new overlords thought I'd steal shit or burn the place down. I kind of felt like it, at that point, honestly."

Hermann nodded. It had never occurred to him to ask Newt to stay in the city and wait for him, but that Hermann and this Newton must have already started their relationship. Even though it would never turn to that, with his Newton, he had still wanted him to stay.

What was that version of him like, that Hermann? This Newton said he was mostly the same, but he doubted that was actually true.

He decided not to dwell on it.

\--

The patterns of light, of the rifts, were waiting for Hermann as soon as he closed his eyes. He tried not to think about the meaning of them beyond understanding their structure, but sleep was sometimes difficult to find.

The situation with Newton, and the pressing weight of responsibility for the entire world, were not the issue. If he solved the problem of the rifts, there was at least a chance that those problems would resolve themselves.

He found himself remembering every choice he made and every bit of good and bad luck in his life. What if things had gone differently; what if he had made a different decision?

Somewhere out there was a version of himself who lived a completely different life. There was a Hermann had always made the correct choices, and avoided the pain and misery that had sprung from so much bad luck and too much misplaced trust. What kind of man would he be, and what else would be different, if he did not have to push aside the weight of past mistakes?

It was maddening.

"Dude, there just has to be a version of me out there, somewhere, whose music career took off. Or one who has like twelve kids or who got into math instead of biology. You ever think about that, Hermann?" 

Newton was not helping.

"There do not have to be any of those versions of you," Hermann said. "And get your  _feet_ off my  _desk."_ He grabbed his cane, jabbing at Newt's boots until they left his personal space.

"Aren't you curious, like, at all? No, I know you are."

He was not helping in the slightest.

"Well, if you  _know,_ " Hermann said, bitter.

"Who wouldn't be? Like, this is one of those big life questions, right? And turns out there is a way to actually find out the answers."

"It would not be nearly that easy," Hermann said. "Most likely, you would find yourself in a place where the differences were insignificant."

"What if we didn't hate each other the first time we met?" Newt said. "In person, I mean. Or we did, but we got over it before like,  _a decade._ "

"I'm sure everything would be roses and sunshine," Hermann said, rolling his eyes.

"No, fuck you, I know they wouldn't be. I mean, from my perspective, we wasted a lot of time and there's no getting that back, really. And it's possible I'm just going to have those few years where things weren't shit between me and my husband, and that's all. It's just kind of comforting to think that there's got to be a version of us out there that didn't screw up from the start." He shrugged. "Even if I hate them for it."

This topic was making him physically ill. "I was right about you, to dislike you," Hermann said.

"No, you were a judgmental, socially incompetent idiot," Newt said. "But that's not the point."

"What a meaningless question--'what if things were different?'" He was not going to mention that there were times when it kept him up at night. "Sure, we could ruin our lives by leaping through to some unknown alternate reality. So what?  _We_ would still be the same. It doesn't erase our memories and experiences, does it? Or you would not be so..." he waved his hand, "...how you are, right now."

"You can't pretend that knowledge of those other universes hasn't in some way fundamentally changed the way you view...everything, really," Newt said.

"Not in any positive way," Hermann said. "It isn't all 'what if I was a  _rockstar_ ?' Or some other inane flight of fancy. What about the realities where all the people we know who died, they survived? What happened differently, that they lived?" He tapped his fingers on the desk, uneasy. "What about all the places where  _everyone_ died? We did, after all, come close to losing. What if the jaeger program was never defunded?" Would he, in that world, be able to speak to his father without bitterness curling in his gut like a sickness?

Newt leaned forward, eyeing him. "You think I don't know this, man? The big theory for why no one goes through most of the rifts: everyone's dead over there."

"Yes, I read that as well. We currently have no way to test if it's true, or just morbid speculation."

"You're the one who's doing all the morbid speculation, here."

"I did not want to discuss this with you," Hermann said, annoyed more with himself for getting pulled into the conversation.

"There's no point thinking about it seriously, though, Hermann. Like you said, we can't actually go back and change anything that happened for us, personally. Even if we actually wanted to."

Hermann took off his glasses and turned to look at Newt. "Newton. There are things that if I could change, I would stop at next to nothing to do so. But just traveling to a place where things were different--that is not at all the same thing, is it. The people here, they would still be dead. The past would still be gone."

"You always have to ruin my lighthearted speculation," Newt said. "This conversation is like the verbal equivalent of me wanting to jump in the pool and then you chain a cement block to my leg."

"You brought it up." He turned back to his work.

A few minutes later, Newt spoke again. " _We're_ still alive, man."

"Yes, that needed to be clarified.  _Thank you_ , Newton, for that helpful addition," Hermann said, sighing.

"No, listen. How much time are we going to lose, now, thinking about how much we've screwed up or wasted? Just got to let it go, man. We both have to let it go."

"Ah, yes, I will just get right on that. It's all  _so_ simple!"

"It's impossible, sure. But what the hell else can we do?" He put his hand on Hermann's shoulder.

Hermann started to say something sarcastic, shake him off, and get back to his work. He stopped himself. "Right." He just had to keep going. Do better next time, so long as he had the chance.

\--

"They're sending a helicopter, but it will be closed by the time they get there," Dr. Tso said. "I'll send you the readings, but it's nothing out of ordinary, Dr. Gottlieb."

Hermann nodded. He ended the call and sat back down on his bed. He should try to go back to sleep.

He got up, again, instead. He pulled on some clothes and headed out of his room, towards the lab.

He saw Newton coming towards him, and for a second thought the man had the same intention. The smell of alcohol hit him before Newt actually reached him. Hermann made a disgusted face.

"Really, Newton?"

"Oh, hey, Hermann!" Newt patted him on the arm. "You're up late. Up early? What time is it? Oh, shit, is it morning?"

"Only technically. There was an event, so I am up early."

"Close?" Newt asked.

"No."

"Never mind, then, who cares. Oh, man, good news though! Everyone agreed that what this reality is seriously lacking is a movie night."

"Who were you drinking with?"

Newt shrugged. "Man, Hermann, man." He threw his arm over Hermann's shoulders and started towards the lab.

Hermann shrugged him off but walked along with him. "I can't believe you were drinking when we are so close to a breakthrough."

Newt laughed. "Since when? We don't know crap, Hermann. You know it, I know it. I'm never getting home!" He laughed, again, shrill.

"That's not true!" Hermann snapped. "You shouldn't drink if it gets you in this mood, Newton, really."

"This is the same mood I've been in, babe," Newt said.

"Don't  _call_ me that."

"You always liked it when I called you pet names," Newt said, leaning against him.

"I never did. That is the  _wrong person."_

"I'm never seeing him again," Newt mumbled. "So who cares?"

"You are seeing him again," Hermann said. He stopped walking, considered for a second, and changed direction. He would take Newton back to his room. "And you will be rid of me once and for all, I promise."

Newt didn't notice their direction had changed until they were outside his door.

"You'll have to unlock it," Hermann said.

Newt reached out and opened the door.

"You didn't lock it."

"Not my stuff. Who cares?" He grabbed Hermann's arm and walked in.

Hermann considered shaking him off and leaving, but he did not like the mood Newt was in. "I'm sure my Newton will have an opinion. When he returns. Which he will. You are a guest here, you do realize." He looked around.

" _Your_ Newton." He scoffed. "Yeah right. Why didn't it work out, anyway?"

"I can't say it  _didn't_ work out. He was one of my...dearest friends." When he thought about that Newt, he felt an ache. He was exhausted, no matter how much or how little sleep he managed. "He did not despise me, like you do."

"Hey, I don't hate you most of the time," Newt said.

"Because I remind you of someone else."

"No, that's when I do hate you," he said. He laughed, like it was a joke. He took off his coat and tossed it on the bed then tried and failed to undo his tie.

"Oh, for god's sake. Come over here and  _I'll_ do it."

Newt shrugged and went over, letting Hermann slowly undo the knot with his shaking hands.

"Really, you've made a mess of this," he said.

"God," Newt breathed. "You look just like him. You're just like him."

"That's not surprising," Hermann said. He finally got the damn tie off of him. "Where do--"

Newt kissed him. He grasped at the front of Hermann's shirt and kissed him, hard and drunken sloppy.

Hermann went completely rigid. Newt let out a little sob and pulled back.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, god. That wasn't--I'm not--" He clung to Hermann's shirt and pressed his face against it, sniffing.

"You're...very drunk," Hermann said. He was completely pale. He reached up and rested his hand on Newt's back.

"I miss him? You're here, but it's not. It's not what I want? I was supposed to be able to have that." He made a choking nose and sat down to the floor.

"I'm sorry," Hermann said. "I am not him. I can't be." He raised his hand to his lips and realized he was still holding Newt's ridiculous tie.

"Why? I don't understand it. What was so different?"

"Some shared history. Some small event we will never remember. There is no point dwelling on it, Newton. I will figure this out, and I  _will_ send you home. If you trusted him, you need to trust me on this. I am  _positive_ I will fix this."

Newt hiccupped and laughed. "God, you are exactly him." His voice dropped into his Hermann imitation. "I'm positive, my good man, we will make this work. I've predicted it, 100% certainty."

"Well, I'm not  _that_ certain. Don't be ridiculous. Get off the floor. It's filthy. And take your tie before I leave with it and throw it in the incinerator."

Newt slowly got up off the floor. He took the tie from Hermann and tossed it on the ground.

Hermann locked the door on the way out, after Newt was settled in bed.

\--

A sudden blinding light, a brief press of lips, and a shouted goodbye.

Hermann covered his mouth, struggling to absorb what happened. He looked down, and through the specks in his vision, found Newt on the floor.

"Newton, are you...?" His heart pounded in his chest.  _Are you the man I knew, or someone completely different?_

 


	8. Chapter 8

Eventually, Newt's face on the television would become a rare sight. That would change again, once they had rebuilt the machine that would send all the other travelers back home. Newt was already planning that press conference.

Hermann was over by the main computer, changing settings. Almost everyone in the lab was staying away from him because the settings needed to be reset because of "human error" during an earlier shift and everyone working there was terrified he would decide they were the human who was in error.

Newt thought it was hilarious how all those grown ass adults were genuinely terrified of _Hermann._ Sure, he could fire anyone in the room, including Newt, but then you wouldn't have to work with Hermann anymore, so there was no reason to get that upset. "Hey, Hermann!" he called across the room.

Hermann didn't answer.

"Excuse me, I'm so sorry, Dr. Gottlieb, I don't know where my head was, back then, disrespecting your title like that." Newt continued, "Anyway, dude--Thursday's movie night. You, me, let's call it a date."

Hermann made a face, not looking up from the screen. "What exactly are they playing?"

" _Zatoichi_ and the new Adam Sandler movie." There was apparently a survey and a vote, and Newt wasn't allowed to do more than have a vote. He would run a much better movie night, and he was thinking of starting his own. It would be wildly popular and everyone would go to his instead.

"Thursday is fine, but I would rather just have dinner," Hermann said.

"Yeah, there aren't any restaurants on this shithole fake island," Newt said. "Options are kind of limited."

Hermann was silent for a minute, considering. "They really are. Fine. But I'm not watching the second one."

Once Hermann could transfer to someplace actually close to civilization, Newt was getting a place with a nice kitchen and he was totally cooking for him. Hermann had no idea Newt could sort of cook, and he was going to blow him away.

\--

[ "No, see, you have to go because you took off the ring," Newt said. "You still have to make up for that."

"I was honestly planning on going, but now I am not so sure. Honestly, you can't say you wore it the entire time."

"There were _extenuating circumstances_ ." He grabbed Hermann's comb and went after him. That cowlick was going to be _history._

Hermann whacked him away with the sleeve of the sweater he was about to put on. "I see, so yours count, but mine don't? And I don't see how watching a movie surrounded by people I am forced to interact with during working hours makes this somehow superior to you just...loading a terrible movie onto your computer and watching it here."

"You said you're going, but you still have to complain about it. Suck it up, Gottlieb."

Hermann sniffed. "That's it. I'm staying here."

"No, babe, c'mon," Newt said, switching from cocky bravado to whiny pleading in an instant. "We spent like the last month in this room. I hate this shithole fake island, Hermann."

"I'd say you could leave whenever you liked, but I would rather you didn't," Hermann said. He pulled on his sweater and Newt came over to button it for him. It was just an excuse for a kiss, so Hermann didn't mind being coddled.

Until Newt drew away and they realized he'd done them up completely wrong, and he made Newt redo them since he had made the mess in the first place.

"Are you...genuinely upset that I didn't wear the ring?" Hermann asked.

"Nah. I mean, I get it."

"You understand, but you're upset," he pressed.

"More like, at the circumstances? I wish you could've gone with me, dude; it would have been so much cooler if it hadn't just been me alone, trying to get some asshole duplicate of you to believe me."

"Well, you're here now. And I am wearing your ring, and we are not spending the night in the room for a change. Forget about all of that."

Newt rolled his eyes. "That's as good advice as 'suck it up,' but okay." There wasn't anything Hermann could actually say to make him feel better. He was trying, though, which actually did help a little, even if the words themselves were useless.

He undid the top button of Hermann's sweater and went to the door. He was wearing like two shirts under it, anyway. Hermann redid it before he followed after Newt. ]

\--

"This is actually the first of a very long running series, and a classic," Newt said. They were sitting in the back. The room wasn't crowded, and no one particularly wanted to sit next to them, so they had the row of chairs almost to themselves.

"I know that," Hermann said. "I'm not completely ignorant."

Newt launched into a complete history of _Zatoichi_ and how it related to the genre as a whole, anyway. Hermann frowned through the lecture, eyes on the screen.

The head of the movie club eventually figured out the aging projector and it started to play. Newt quieted down. wiggling in his seat to get comfortable, accidentally knocking against Hermann six separate times.

Two minutes into the movie, Newt yawned and put his arm around Hermann's shoulders. Maybe it hadn't been accidental. Hermann turned and glared at the side of Newt's face. He started to say something, but Newt shushed him.

"It's playing," he whispered, loudly.

Hermann rolled his eyes and leaned into him. _Really._ They weren't teenagers.

He realized that the number of years since his last relationship ended equaled the age of a young adolescent. God. No wonder he was so uncomfortable.

He deliberately put his hand on Newt's knee. He wanted things to be clear. Newt looked at him, but Hermann didn't look away from the screen.

Newt, predictably, got fully entrenched in the movie in a few minutes. They left before the next movie started, without argument.

"I think I have a couple of the other ones on my laptop," Newt said, "Or I can get them."

"I'm not really that interested," Hermann said. "It wasn't terrible."

"Oh. Well, thanks, for putting up with it for an hour," he said, irritated.

Hermann nudged him with his elbow. "Maybe you have something we can agree on."

Newt's expression cleared. "Oh, sure. I've got extra drives that are just for movies. There has to be something you'll watch without being a shit about it."

"I think your optimism is something about you I'm fond of, Newton," Hermann said. They were outside Newt's room.

Newt raised an eyebrow and looked him over. "That's--I have no idea how to take that."

"Just take your key and open the door, then." He was starting to get nervous. He was not planning on watching any more movies that evening.

"Like, have you ever complimented me on purpose before?"

"I'm sure I have."

"Drawing a blank."

"Because you're _oblivious_."

Newt got the door open and Hermann went in first. It looked about the same as it had when he visited _the other_ Newton. There was more mess.

"So do you have any genre you tolerate? How are you the same age as me, but you don't watch anything? NASA documentaries? Harry Potter? Everyone likes Harry Potter. Help me out here."

Hermann was still looking around. They could either watch on the floor or on Newton's bed. The room wasn't overcrowded with guest seating. Hermann was not interested in sitting on the floor. "Before we, uh," he felt his face getting hot, " _watch the film,_ I had something I've been meaning to ask."

"This sounds serious," Newt joked. "What's up, dude? Wait, no, let's sit down, first."

Like Hermann suspected, Newt just gestured at the bed. They sat next to each other, on the edge, which felt just as awkward as standing around to him.

"Something up?" Now that he was actually looking at Hermann, he seemed worried.

"This is going to seem like a stupid question," Hermann said.

"Maybe. Ask it anyway," Newt said.

He felt like he shouldn't have to ask. They had _drifted_ , after all, and Newton had called this a "date" and been deliberately _touchy_ the entire time. He hated that he was going to sound like an idiot, asking it. "Newton, are you actually attracted to me?" The inclination to mumble was there, but he spoke clearly, so he would not have to ask again.

" _What_?"

Hermann's shoulders slumped, miserably.

"I mean, _obviously_ I'm attracted to you, Hermann, what do you think I'm doing here?"

"But, I mean, this _version_ of me," he said, a little quieter.

"Oh. Yeah! I mean, I'm not sure how to prove that, but you're basically the same person, except you're the one I actually drifted with and who brought me shit when I was stuck in the hospital. You actually want me here, and aren't just hoping I'll leave so someone better will come along. Right? I mean, I'm just going to throw the question back at you, now, because you aren't saying anything and it's kind of triggering a whole host of insecurities I didn't want to get into and kind of don't ever really want to get into--" he broke off, and tried again, "--what about you, man?"

Hermann considered his answer. "Well, _obviously."_

"Okay. So, uh, that's cleared up, then. Right?"

He'd gone and made Newt very nervous. He closed his eyes. "Right." There was a part of him that had been hoping Newt would deny the attraction, turn him down, and then they would actually watch some godforsaken thing on his computer. It would be easier. That part of him was a coward, he decided.

He made his decision. He opened his eyes, again, and turned to face Newt.

Newt looked _terrified._ "Um, you're kind of intense right now. Like you're pissed and about to clock me."

Hermann laughed, despite himself. He covered his mouth with his hand. "That...that is not at all what I am intending."

Newt grinned back, tension still clear in his posture. "Okay, good, we're back on the same page."

Hermann tried again. He shifted, closer, and put his arms around Newt.

"Oh, _Oh._ That's what you're doing. Of course that's what you're doing, wow. I'm just going to...just maybe stop words from happening for a second, see what happens."

Hermann smiled, slightly, again, despite himself.

"Holy shit. I am like, really into how your face looks right now," Newt said.

"Yes, you are very..." Hermann started, softly, "I am very fond of..." He frowned, frustrated with how he couldn't think of the words he wanted. "All of you."

"Wow," Newt said, letting out a short breath. "That was...so cheesy. Like. Dramatic? I'm kind of really into it, though, I'm not complaining."

Hermann's hand tightened on the back of Newt's shirt. He closed the last of the gap between them, finding Newton's lips and finding them parted and waiting for him.

\--

Newt squinted at himself, in the mirror. "What would you say if I dyed my hair? Like, I'm going to do it anyway, but give me a ballpark estimate of what your reaction is going to be."

"What color? Did you find your gray hair?" Hermann asked, amused. He sat on the bed, buttoning his shirt.

"You _knew_? And you didn't tell me?"

"Forty is not that far away, Newton."

"Shut your mouth. I don't need to hear that from someone who's been ninety since the day he was born."

"Could you at least wait a few more years before having your midlife crisis?"

"How dare you. _How dare you_ be in such a good mood before I've had any caffeine and after I found my first gray hair."

"There are more like twelve."

"You _counted_? That's it; I hate you and I'm dyeing it blue." He fussed through his hair, and found another gray one.

"Everyone will look at you and think, 'oh, Dr. Geiszler is starting his midlife crisis, apparently.'"

"Like I care." Newt came back over and sat down next to him, yanking the top button open so he could kiss under it. "It's going to look awesome."

"Where are you getting the dye? I doubt the store stocks it."

"You really underestimate me if you don't think I'm holding onto this idea until after we move."

"Well. I don't want to _underestimate_ you. I will brace myself."

Newt undid another two buttons, kissing a little lower.

"Newton. We don't have time for this."

"Yeah, I know. Machines to build, people to send home. The infinite nature of reality to pick apart, kaiju pieces to accelerate decomposition on."

That hit on something Hermann had been thinking about. It didn't occur to him that it wasn't the best time to start talking about it. "Infinite? Perhaps. Or a number so large as to be nearly incomprehensible. The number of realities we have access to," he continued, as Newt continued unbuttoning his shirt, "would be significantly lower than that. Any version of us that diverged significantly would not allow us to pass through the rifts, and any version where we had died would also be impossible. And so on."

"Barely scraped through the apocalypse," Newt said. "Gotta be a lot of dead us' out there." He shivered. "I don't think I'd want to visit a world where they won, anyway, even if it'd be kind of cool."

He felt a twinge of unease, and he wished he hadn't brought it up. "If we skip breakfast, we have twenty minutes," Hermann said.

"Dude, we're not skipping breakfast. You need to eat after I blow you, or you'll be worn out and a cranky dickbag all day." Newt brightened up immediately.

"Was that what you were planning?" He paused, considering his schedule. "I can shuffle some things around." He looked down at the top of Newt's head.

Newt laughed. "Hermann, you are so easy. I am totally using that to my advantage."

"Hm. Oh. Thirteen," Hermann said, tugging on a tuft of Newt's hair.

" _Son_ of a--what's your least favorite color, Hermann?"

"If we're just going to _chat,_ we can do that anywhere else."

"Never mind. I think I know it, anyway. Weird."

Hermann saw himself spending the rest of the day rushing because he messed up his schedule at the start, and _for no good reason._ He grabbed the front of Newt's shirt and clenched it in his fist, yanking him up into a kiss. He released him again, almost immediately.

"Oh, yeah, right," Newt said, flustered.

"Just _get on with it_."

Since they started a little late, they had to make up for lost time.

 

\--

 

The End

 


End file.
